THE  CALL 
OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

JENNINGS  C.WISE 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


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THE  CALL  of 
The  REPUBLIC 

A  National  Army  and 
Universal  Military  Service 

BY 

JENNINGS  C.WISE 

author  of 
"empire  and  armament,"  "the  long  arm  of  lee,"  etc. 


"JIffe  thinkes  it  were  meete  that  any  one,  be- 
fore he  come  to  be  a  captayne,  should  have 
bene  a  soldiour." — Spenser. 


"Wherever  thy  Navy  spreads  her  canvas  wings, 
Homage  to  thee,  and  peace  to  all,  she  brings." 

— Waller. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  CO. 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1917, 
E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 


^rinteb  in  tfje  Qiniteb  fttatnt  of  iStntdca 


PREFACE 

Not  long  ago,  in  the  cover  illustration  of  a 
great  popular  weekly,  Uncle  Sam  was  repre- 
sented holding  in  his  hands  a  flint-lock  musket 
and  closely  examining  its  ancient  mechanism. 
The  expression  on  his  face  was  a  puzzled  one, 
for  he  seemed  not  only  to  be  unfamiliar 
with  the  obsolete  piece,  but  impatient  with  it. 
It  seemed  as  if  his  mind  had  fully  grasped  the 
danger  %  of  depending  upon  a  weapon  so 
thoroughly  antiquated  and  inadequate  to  his 
pressing  needs.  The  picture  was  a  good  one, 
and  I  could  not  but  wonder  if  the  cartoonist 
himself  understood  the  fullness  of  its  signifi- 
cance. This  reflection  led  me  on  to  further  cog- 
itation and  I  determined  to  answer,  in  a  very 
thorough  way,  the  question  that  arose  in  my 
mind.  That  question  was,  not  how  shall  he 
defend  himself,  but  with  what  weapon  will 
Uncle  Sam  henceforth  oppose  his  foes? 

The  observations  that  follow  in  this  book 
comprise  the  answer.  The  author  promises  his 
readers  that  pacifism  and  pacific  principles  will 


ocroorii^ 


PREFACE 

not  be  dwelt  upon.  The  most  effective  system 
of  national  military  preparedness  alone  will  be 
considered. 

Not  long  ago  I  visited  Vicksbnrg  and  com- 
pleted a  tour  of  the  defensive  lines  of  the  city. 
East  of  the  city  there  runs  a  semicircular  ridge 
from  the  river  on  the  North  back  to  the  river  on 
the  South — a  great,  natural  rampart,  along  the 
crest  of  which  was  the  Confederate  position. 
Upon  examining  this  line  I  saw  that  it  was  not 
the  science  of  men  alone  that  had  defended 
Vicksburg,  but  that  in  the  memorable  siege  Na- 
ture had  played  no  small  part,  for  the  artillery 
of  Grant  was  powerless  against  that  massive 
work  she  had  thrown  up.  And  then  I  contem- 
plated how  impotent  even  Nature  was  to-day  to 
defend  against  the  modern  science  of  war,  for 
I  knew  that  the  great  guns  of  Europe  could 
raze  the  rampart  which  she  had  thrown  about 
Vicksburg  almost  as  easily  as  they  could  de- 
stroy one  erected  by  mortal  hands.  This 
thought  led  my  mind  to  dwell  upon  other  de- 
fensive works  of  Nature — those  oceans  that 
separate  America  from  Europe  and  Asia  which 
time  has  rendered  as  obsolete  fox  defense  as  the 
moats  of  medieval  fortresses. 

**Only  the  law  of  change  is  changeless,"  I 
said  to  myself,  and  looking  up,  read  in  endur- 

vi 


PREFACE 

ing  bronze  over  the  portal  of  the  superb  monu- 
ment which  the  generous  State  of  Illinois  had 
erected  to  the  memory  of  its  soldiers,  these 
words : 

**We  have  but  little  to  do  to  preserve  peace, 
happiness  and  prosperity  at  home,  and  the  re- 
spect of  the  nations.  Our  experience  ought  to 
teach  us  the  necessity  of  the  first,  our  power 
secures  the  latter. — U.  S.  Grant." 

And  here  too  there  was  change;  Grant  con- 
scientiously could  not  write  those  words  to-day, 
for  Nature  has  withdrawn  her  aid  from  us,  and 
we  have  failed  utterly  to  develop  an  artificial 
power  capable  of  overcoming  the  resulting 
weakness  of  our  position.  We  have  failed  to 
see  the  warning  in  Jeremiah:  ** Arise,  get  up 
unto  the  wealthy  nation,  that  dwelleth  with- 
out care,  saith  the  Lord,  which  have  neither 
gates  nor  bars,  which  dwell  alone.  And  their 
camels  shall  be  a  booty  and  the  multitude  of 
their  cattle  a  spoil  ...  I  will  bring  their  ca- 
lamity from  all  sides. ' ' 

If  this  work  shall  contribute  in  some  small 
measure,  however  little,  to  bring  to  the  nation 
that  vision  without  which  our  people  will  per- 
ish, it  will  not  have  been  written  in  vain. 

J.  C.  W. 


vii 


FOEEWOED 

BY  MAJOE  GENEKAL  LEONABD  WOOD,  XT.  S.  A. 

Colonel  Jennings  S.  Wise  is  especially  well 
qualified  to  present  to  the  public  tlie  question 
of  universal  service  both  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  student  of  military  history,  in  which  field 
he  has  done  much  and  most  excellent  work,  and 
also  from  the  standpoint  of  a  trained  and  ex- 
perienced soldier.  Colonel  Wise  is  a  graduate 
of  Virginia  Military  Institute  and  for  a  long 
time  was  connected  with  that  institution  in  vari- 
ous capacities.  He  has  also  had  experience  in 
the  field.  He  has  written  extensively  and  very 
ably  on  military  subjects  and  appreciates  the 
danger  and  folly  of  further  dependence  for  na- 
tional defense  upon  the  haphazard  system  of 
the  past,  a  system  which  has  stamped  itself 
upon  our  military  policy  and  has  resulted  in 
great  and  unnecessary  sacrifice  of  life  arid 
treasure  in  our  wars  and  military  operations. 

He  brings  out  very  clearly  the  new  conditions 
of  organization,  involving  all  the  resources  of 
a  nation,  which  characterize  modern  prepared- 


FOREWORD 

ness,  and  presents  in  a  most  convincing  manner 
the  reasons  for  universal  training  and  service. 
He  makes  clear  the  unwisdom  and  danger  of 
further  delay  in  meeting  conditions  which, 
whether  they  be  fortunate  or  unfortunate,  ex- 
ist and  form  a  part  of  the  great  world  life  of 
the  day,  conditions  which  make  war  possible 
and  at  times  inevitable  for  all  nations  who  have 
convictions  and  a  sense  of  right,  nations  whose 
people  believe  that  at  times  it  is  better  to  break 
the  peace  than  to  break  the  faith.  This  condi- 
tion of  possible  war  we  must  be  prepared  to 
meet  and  meet  promptly  if  we  wish  to  continue 
our  existence  as  a  nation.  It  is  a  book  which 
all  Americans  can  read  with  profit  and  one 
which,  if  heeded,  will  add  much  to  national  well 
being  and  security. 

Headquarters  Eastern  Department, 
Governor's  Island,  N.  Y., 
March  7,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


FAQE 


The  Call  of  the  Republic 1 

CHAPTER 

I.    Intkoductory 5 

II.    The  Ancient  Medieval  Military  Sys- 
tems       16 

III.  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Mod- 

ern National  Army 25 

IV.  Military  Service  in  Its  Most  Demo- 

cratic Form 35 

V.   The  English  Ideal  of  Voluntary  Ser- 
vice        40 

VI.   The  Inherited  American  Ideal  ...       50 

VII.    The  American  Military  System      .     .      64 

VIII.    The  Ideal  Military  Institution      .     .       96 

IX.    The    Fear  op  Militarism  Unreason- 
able   120 

Bibliography     .•••,•....     139 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


Awake  freemen — awake! 

If  not  for  self,  for  country's  sake 

Let  your  unclouded  eyes 

Penetrate  the  specious  guise 

Of  that  false  schism 

Adroitly  styled  Pacificism, 

Know  ye  the  truth — 

The  iron  of  the  rudest  State 

Can  still  decide  the  fate 

Of  any  realm 

That  casts  aside  its  mml  and  helm. 

While  ruled  the  world  hy  Mars 

And  his  perpetual  wars, 

No  race  may  long  secure  release 

From  strife,  nor  purchase  peace. 


2. 


Awake  freemen — awake! 
Let  not  these  shallow  pratvngs  shake 
1 


^  •*  -^^SE  GALL  X'P  THE  REPUBLIC 

Your  faith  in  steel,  or  duU 

Tour  sight  with  hope,  or  lull 

You  into  fatuous  dreams. 

Still  on  earth  is  might 

The  final  arbiter  of  right. 

When  all  ahout  are  soum  the  dragon's  teeth, 

Why  tudne  ye  now  the  olive  wreath? 


Awake  freemen — awake! 

Your  own  security  ye  must  make; 

Nor  hope  to  ransom  health 

With  that  unequaled  wealth 

Ye  haA)e  amassed. 

Unless  your  gold  is  cast 

In  finely  tempered  arms. 

And  your  youthful  hrawn 

Is  universally  drawn 

Upon  to  wield  them  in  the  strife 

Of  international  Ufe, 


Awake  freemen — awake! 
Fear  not  upon  yourselves  to  take 
The  burden  of  the  Staters  defense — 
In  freedom  find  the  recompense 
For  ma/nhood's  sacrifice. 
2 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

Let  every  citizen  a  warrior  he, 

And  every  soldier,  free 

When  trwined,  remain  a  citizen: 

Give  no  man  choice  to  shirk 

The  nation's  sternest  work. 

The  unvarying  price 

Of  peace  is  hlood  and  toil: 

In  these  for  flag  and  home  and  soil 

Prepare  the  race  to  pay — 

As  in  the  past — again  to-day! 

5. 

Awake  freemen — aimike! 

With  peace  at  stake 

And  liberty,  mil  ye  slumber 

On  forever,  unconscious  under 

This  spell  of  lies  amd  sloth  f 

Go  forth 

Like  men.    Abandon  sordid  ease! 

Gird  on  the  sword,  and  seize 

Each  in  his  hand  a  spear. 

Be  every  citizen  a  volunteer 

At  heart. 

Do  each  his  part. 

6. 

Awake  freeman — awake! 
The  world's  foundations  quake! 
3 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

When  all  is  lost 

Too  late  to  count  the  cost, 

Or  then  appease 

The  insatiate  maw 

Of  war. 

'Tis  now  the  Uepuhlic  calls 

In  time  of  peace  for  strong-armed  m^n. 

The  need  is  great — no  false  alarms 

Are  these. 

Ye  are  hut  servile  thralls 

Of  ease 

Who  fail  to  answer  when 

The  nation's  trumpet  sounds  to  arms! 

J.  C.  W. 


CHAPTEE  I 


INTEODUCTOBY 


THE  object  of  the  author  in  writing  this 
book  was  to  place  before  his  readers  in 
simple  and  collected  form,  side  by  side,  the  facts 
connected  with  the  development  of  the  national 
army  system  which  exists  in  all  European 
countries,  and  those  which  explain  the  origin 
and  persistence  of  the  volunteer  mercenary 
army  system  which  is  retained  in  the  United 
States  alone. 

A  close  analysis  of  those  facts  has  been  at- 
tempted whenever  such  a  course  would  empha- 
size the  unwarranted  nature  of  the  American 
prejudice  against  a  peace  army,  and  the  illogi- 
cal retention  by  the  American  people  of  the 
mercenary  system  in  the  mistaken  belief  that 
universal  compulsory  service  is  an  undemo- 
cratic institution.  It  has  been  attempted  to 
show  that  such  a  system  is  not  only  highly 
(iemocratic  in  conception  and  in  its  practical 

5 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

working,  but  that  the  cherislied  volunteer  mer- 
cenary system  is  undemocratic  both  in  origin 
and  effect. 

The  claims  asserted  in  favor  of  universal 
compulsory  military  service  as  the  only  proper 
basis  of  a  truly  national  army  may  seem  sub- 
ject to  general  condemnation  on  the  ground  that 
the  more  efficient  an  army,  the  more  likely  it 
is  to  be  misused.  This  is  a  purely  pacifist  argu- 
ment with  which  this  study  has  nothing  to  do. 
Commencing  our  study  with  the  assumption 
that  an  army  is  necessary,  our  purpose  is  solely 
that  of  determining  the  best  system  for  its  or- 
ganization and  maintenance.  Because  high- 
powered  locomotives  are  given  to  derailment  on 
occasions,  we  must  not  revert  to  the  use  of 
stage  coaches  and  canal  boats  for  transporta- 
tion purposes.  Neither  should  we  employ  ob- 
solete and  inefficient  means  for  defense  because 
the  highly  improbable  prostitution  of  a  popular 
military  institution,  adequate  to  our  national 
needs,  would  be  more  harmful  in  its  conse- 
quences than  the  abuse  and  misapplication  of  an 
inadequate  system  of  defense. 

Where  a  national  conviction  rests  upon  a 
basis  of  ignorance  and  prejudice,  it  cannot 
prove  very  resistant  to  the  undermining  proc- 

6 


INTRODUCTORY 

ess  of  logic.  Castles  do  not  stand  firmly  upon 
foundations  of  sand.  A  false  philosophy  must 
crumble  beneath  the  battering  ram  of  truth,  and 
it  remains  to  the  statesmen,  publicists  and  schol- 
ars of  America  to  direct  their  irresistible  blows 
upon  the  popular  prejudice  of  the  American 
people  which  has  become  so  firmly  entrenched 
in  their  minds. 

Our  military  men  have  long  since  seen  the 
light  of  truth.  They  have  vainly  sought  to 
shed  that  light  upon  their  fellow  citizens.  The 
very  prejudice  which  they  have  sought  to  dis- 
sipate has  itself  been  the  principal  obstacle  to 
their  success.  Civilians  are  not  receptive  of 
advice  from  soldiers — ^their  viewpoint  is  totally 
different  from  that  of  the  military  man.  They 
will  act  upon  the  counsel  of  an  editor  or  an 
orator,  be  he  the  veriest  tyro  in  his  knowledge, 
but  not  upon  that  of  a  faithful  soldier  in  any 
matter  which  involves  the  popular  interest. 
Thus  have  they  frequently  subjected  themselves 
to  the  hard  necessity  of  being  constrained  by 
force  in  crises  to  heed  the  superior  wisdom  of 
military  men  in  military  matters. 

It  is  as  much  the  duty  of  statesmen  to  perfect 
their  knowledge  of  the  correct  principles  of 
national  defense  as  it  is  that  of  military  chief- 

7 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

tains.  The  persistent  neglect  of  tliis  duty  by 
the  popular  leaders  of  America  is  the  reason  for 
the  lack  of  sympathy  existing  between  the 
people  and  the  army.  The  estrangement  is 
due  entirely  to  a  lack  of  community  of  thought 
among  their  representatives.  Our  soldiers  re- 
gard a  knowledge  of  civics  as  part  of  their 
education — few  of  our  so-called  statesmen 
trouble  themselves  with  a  scientific  solution  of 
the  problem  of  national  defense.  The  latter 
prefer  to  accept  their  ancient  Bill  of  Rights  as 
the  leading  text  of  defensive  science.  Thus 
they  fail  to  progress,  and  adhere  rigidly  to  a 
false  conclusion  based  on  a  correct  principle. 
That  principle  is  as  true  to-day  as  when  enunci- 
ated by  the  English  people  in  1688 — the  people 
must  comprise  their  own  defense.  The  infer- 
ence that  when  efficiently  organized  they  con- 
stitute a  threat  to  their  own  security  is  utterly 
false.  The  standing  armies  that  were  so  justly 
feared  by  our  British  forefathers  were  not 
comprised  of  the  body  politic;  they  were  not 
comprised  of  the  national  aggregates  and  im- 
bued with  a  nationalistic  spirit  of  patriotism; 
they  were  constituted  either  by  un-national  mer- 
cenaries, or  by  citizens  denationalized  in  inter- 
est under  the  mercenary  system  of  their  em- 

8 


INTRODUCTORY 

ployment.  And  then  we  must  remember  that 
the  "andiseiplined  citizens  of  to-day  are  in  no 
sense  comparable  as  soldiers  with  the  miles  or 
militiaman  of  early  days  when  all  men  were 
trained  in  the  nse  of  arms  in  the  school  of  neces- 
sity, or  were  familiar  with  their  use.  The 
ancient  militia  very  much  more  nearly  ap- 
proached the  organized  soldiery  in  military  ca- 
pacity than  do  the  citizens  of  to-day.  Formerly 
the  difference  between  them  was  in  no  sense 
physical;  the  hard-working  yokel  was  fre- 
quently superior  in  physical  constitution  to  the 
indolent  and  luxurious  man-at-arms.  The  dif- 
ference was  solely  one  of  organization  from 
which  disciplined  action  resulted.  To-day  the 
difference  lies  in  a  complete  unfamiliarity  on 
the  part  of  the  militiaman  with  arms,  wood- 
craft, field  conditions,  and  in  his  inferior  physi- 
cal development  as  well. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  comparative  analy- 
sis we  should  be  better  prepared  to  separate 
the  wheat  from  the  tares  that  have  grown  up 
in  our  political  philosophy. 

As  we  pursue  our  study  we  shall  see  that  the 
institution  of  a  national  army  based  on  univer- 
sal compulsory  military  service  accords  well 
with  the  system  of  citizen  soldiery  favored  by 

9 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  that  of  the  two — national 
and  volunteer — the  mercenary  army  which  we 
now  maintain  in  time  of  peace  is  the  more 
closely  related  to  the  standing  army  condemned 
in  that  great  popular  writ.  And  the  conclu- 
sion will  not  seem  forced  that  in  order  to  pre- 
serve the  defense  of  the  country  to  the  citizens 
as  their  exclusive  right  under  the  constitution, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  establish  a  true  relation 
between  the  citizen  soldiery  of  to-day  and  the 
militia  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This,  in 
view  of  the  deterioration  of  civilians  in  mili- 
tary capacity,  by  reason  of  a  complete  revolu- 
tion in  the  social  and  economic  conditions  sur- 
rounding them,  can  only  be  accomplished  by 
subjecting  portions  of  them  at  a  time  to  organ- 
ized training  in  time  of  peace.  Government 
must  do  that  which  nature  formerly  did.  The 
altered  conditions  necessitate  a  change  of 
method  in  order  to  insure  the  old  results.  Gov- 
ernment can  only  render  the  universal  liability 
to  military  service  of  American  citizens  effec- 
tive, by  preparing  them  to  meet  their  obliga- 
tions. When  universal  training  is  given  the  en- 
tire body  of  the  freemen  of  a  nation  by  annual 
drafts,  in  time  of  peace,  not  under  the  com- 
pulsion of  national  spirit,  but  under  the  com- 

10 


INTRODUCTORY 

pulsion  of  constitutional  law,  the  system  is  that 
of  universal  compulsory  service,  and  the  re- 
sulting efficient  and  democratic  army  is  known 
as  a  National  Army — representative  of  the  mili- 
tary institution  in  its  noblest  form.  It  is  such 
an  army  that  the  United  States  must  have. 

At  this  time,  when  all  men's  minds  dwell  upon 
the  problem  of  insuring  their  national  security, 
whether  by  defensive  armaments  or  by  the 
methods  proposed  by  the  pacifists,  it  is  well  to 
consider  that  system  of  defense  which  has  been 
universally  adopted  as  best,  except  by  the 
United  States.  This  is  the  system  of  compul- 
sory military  service  under  which  military  ser- 
vice is  justly  deemed  an  obligatory  right  of  the 
citizen  or  subject. 

Whether  a  man  be  regarded  as  the  vassal  of 
his  sovereign,  as  in  Russia,  and  other  absolutist 
States,  whether  he  be  deemed  a  mere  creature 
of  the  State  or  political  atom,  as  in  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary,  or  whether  government 
is  viewed  as  the  agent  of  the  people,  as  in  the 
United  States  and  other  democracies,  it  is  con^ 
ceded  that  in  return  for  the  allegiance  and  sup- 
port of  the  citizen  or  subject,  the  State  owes  him 
protection  for  his  life  and  property,  at  home 
and  abroad.     The  claim  of  his  right  to  pursue 

11 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

happiness  may  be  denied — his  right  to  protec- 
tion is  always  acceded.  The  idea  was  strik- 
ingly expressed  by  the  great  democrat,  Cal- 
houn, when  he  declared  that  '*  Government  is 
Protection, ' '  a  declaration  couched  in  terms 
alike  acceptable  to  Tzar  and  President,  King 
and  peasant,  Pope  and  Puritan,  the  rich  and 
the  pauper,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant.  And 
here  it  may  be  said  that  no  State,  however  lib- 
eral, however  harsh  its  government  may  have 
been,  has  long  survived  when  the  principle, 
so  aptly  expressed  by  Calhoun,  has  failed  to 
be  regarded  by  those  in  power  as  a  funda- 
mental concept  of  government. 

But  while  that  principle  has  ever  been  firmly 
engrafted  upon  successful  governments,  what- 
ever their  nature,  the  systems  by  which  na- 
tional protection  has  been  secured,  have  varied. 
Beginning  with  the  ancient  democratic  con- 
cept that  with  manhood  suffrage  went  hand 
in  hand  the  manhood  obligation  of  military  ser- 
vice, the  protective  system  degenerated  into  one 
which  imposed  no  obligation  upon  the  freeman, 
leaving  the  national  defense  to  the  ruler  and 
his  hireling  soldiery,  reenforced  betimes  by 
levies  of  unwilling  conscripts  from  among  his 
subjects. 

12 


INTRODUCTORY 

The  period  in  which  the  mercenary  and  con- 
scriptive  system  was  in  vogue  was  a  degenerate 
one,  and  of  the  prevailing  degeneracy  of  the 
times,  the  system  was  itseK  the  best  evidence. 
It  could  only  have  been  generally  tolerated  un- 
der a  careless  regard  for  the  national  welfare, 
or  by  reason  of  a  complete  misconception  of  the 
nobility  of  personal  service  in  defense  of  home 
and  country. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  the  philosophy 
of  Treitschke  in  toto  in  order  to  concede  the 
accuracy  of  some  of  his  conclusions.  Espe- 
cially sound  were  his  views  on  national  de- 
fense.   Wrote  he : 

**  Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  right  to 
bear  arms  must  always  be  looked  upon  as  the 
privilege  of  a  free  man.  It  was  only  during 
the  last  period  of  the  Roman  Empire  that  the 
system  of  keeping  mercenaries  was  adopted. 
And,  as  mercenary  troops  consisted,  except  for 
their  officers,  of  the  lowest  dregs  of  society, 
the  idea  soon  became  prevalent  that  military 
service  was  a  disgrace,  and  the  free  citizen  be- 
gan to  show  himself  anxious  not  to  take  part  in 
it.  This  conception  of  the  mercenary  system 
has  gone  on  perpetuating  itself  through  the 

13 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

ages,  and  its  after  effects  have  been  strik- 
ingly demonstrated  even  in  our  own  day. 
Our  century  has  been  called  on  to  witness, 
in  the  formation  of  the  national  and  civil 
guards,  the  most  immoral  and  unreasonable  de- 
velopments of  which  the  military  system  is 
capable.  The  citizens  imagined  themselves  too 
good  to  bear  arms  against  the  enemies  of  their 
country,  but  they  were  not  averse  to  playing 
as  soldiers  at  home,  and  even  to  being  able  to 
defend  their  purse  if  it  should  happen  to  be  in 
danger. ' ' 

Treitschke's  strictures  are  always  harsh,  and 
often,  as  in  this  instance,  only  too  true,  for  the 
release  of  the  able-bodied  citizen  in  peace  time 
from  his  inherent  obligation  to  his  State  and 
his  weaker  fellows,  by  the  substitution  of  a 
permanent  mercenary  force  for  the  citizen 
soldiery,  has  invariably  tended  to  lower  his  re- 
spect for  his  military  obligations  and,  there- 
fore, to  render  him  less  willing  to  make  a  sacri- 
fice for  his  country  when  his  services  are  im- 
peratively needed.  From  being  regarded  as  a 
privilege,  the  right  of  bearing  arms  soon  be- 
comes, under  the  vicious  mercenary  system,  a 
burden  upon  the  citizen.    By  that  system  his 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

patriotism  is  deadened — his  love  of  country  is 
weakened  along  with  his  good  right  arm.  And 
so  writes  Treitschke: 

**The  right  to  bear  arms  will  ever  remain 
the  honorary  privilege  of  the  free  man.  All 
noble  minds  have  more  or  less  recognized  the 
truth  that  *The  God  who  created  iron  did  not 
wish  men  to  be  thralls.'  And  it  is  the  task  of 
all  reasonable  political  systems  to  keep  this 
idea  in  honor." 


15 


CHAPTER  n 

THE  ANCIENT  AND  MEDIEVAL  MILITARY  SYSTEMS 

THE  development  of  the  system  of  com- 
pulsory military  service  in  Europe  must 
be  traced  from  its  origin  among  the  democratic 
peoples  of  ancient  times.  In  tracing  the  history 
of  the  system  one  must  be  forcefully  impressed 
by  the  fact  that  its  roots  were  bedded  in  the 
soil  of  democracy  and  that  it  has  ever  been  re- 
garded in  Europe  as  a  distinctly  popular  insti- 
tution as  opposed  to  the  mercenary  system  of 
service.  One  must  also  be  struck  by  the  fact 
that  in  countries  with  an  autocratic  form  of 
government,  universal  compulsory  military  ser- 
vice has  been  regarded  as  a  popular  institution, 
and  that  in  England  and  America,  which  coun- 
tries have  ever  boasted  a  comparatively  free 
government,  the  institution  of  a  national  army 
has  been  deemed  to  be  the  instrument  of  au- 
tocracy. 
In  Egypt,  whence  came  no  small  measure  of 
16 


MEDIEVAL  MILITARY  SYSTEMS 

the  culture  of  ancient  Europe,  military  service 
was  conferred  as  a  privilege  upon  a  certain 
class,  and  a  property  qualification  was  imposed 
upon  every  man  intrusted  with  the  defense  of 
his  country.  Even  the  common  soldier  must 
possess  not  less  than  six  acres  of  land,  which 
served  for  the  support  of  his  family,  and  which 
were  free  from  taxation. 

In  Greece  the  soldiers  were  also  chiefly  free 
citize*ns,  who  were  early  trained  to  arms  and, 
after  attaining  a  prescribed  age,  were  subject 
to  actual  service  in  war.  Those  who  had 
reached  the  age  of  forty  were  released  from 
service,  except  in  cases  of  very  urgent  danger. 
Some  were  also  wholly  or  temporarily  exempted 
on  account  of  their  office  or  employment. 
Originally  the  warriors  maintained  themselves, 
and  every  free  citizen  deemed  it  a  dishonor  to 
serve  for  pay.  But  the  tendency  of  the  soldiers 
to  claim  the  right  of  pillage  led  to  the  system 
of  stated  remuneration. 

Rome  admitted  no  soldiers  to  her  army  un- 
der seventeen  years  of  age,  and  all  men  be- 
tween seventeen  and  forty-five  years  were  en- 
rolled among  the  class  of  younger  men,  and 
were  held  liable  to  service,  while  those  over 
forty-five  were  ranked  among  the  elder  men 

17 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

and  exempted  from  military  duty.  The  legal 
term  of  service  varied  among  the  arms  from 
ten  to  sixteen  years.  In  protracted  wars  four 
years  were  sometimes  added  to  the  customary 
term,  and  under  the  Emperors  twenty  years 
of  service  was  required.  Enrolled  citizens  for- 
feited their  property  and  liberty  for  failure  to 
respond  to  the  call  to  arms.  Persons  without 
property  were  not  enrolled  as  soldiers,  for,  hav- 
ing nothing  to  lose,  they  were  accounted  devoid 
of  patriotism.  As  all  soldiers  were  Eoman 
citizens  and  free  born,  military  service  was 
held  in  high  esteem,  and  soldiers  were  accorded 
peculiar  rights  and  privileges.  Until  about  400 
B.  C.  soldiers  received  no  pay.  From  that  time 
on  pay  was  given  and  gradually  increased. 

The  prevailing  conceptions  of  military  ser- 
vice in  Egypt,  Greece  and  Rome  were  distinctly 
democratic.  Nowhere  is  to  be  found  a  sugges- 
tion of  the  idea  that  military  service  is  degrad- 
ing and  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  freeman,  or  to 
be  shunned  by  the  citizen.  The  ancients  jeal- 
ously prized  their  military  institutions  as  pecu- 
liarly worthy  of  the  citizens '  favor  and  respect. 
They  saw  in  the  military  service  of  their  coun- 
try an  exemplification  of  patriotism — a  mani- 
festation of  civic  sincerity  by  personal  sacrifice 

18 


MEDIEVAL  MILITARY  SYSTEMS 

on  the  part  of  the  citizens,  and  not  content  with 
an  oath  of  loyalty  alone  as  a  qualification  for 
this  service,  they  debarred  from  the  honor  of 
participating  therein  all  those  whose  material 
interests  were  not  such  as  to  comprise  an  as- 
surance of  faithful  discharge  of  duty. 

To  a  Roman  or  to  a  Greek,  it  would  have 
seemed  inconceivable  that  enlightened  men 
could  surrender  the  national  defense  to  those 
who  might  volunteer  from  selfish  motives,  or 
worse,  merely  to  earn  a  livelihood.  Military 
service  was  associated  in  their  minds  with  the 
ideal  of  the  higher  duty  of  man,  and  to  preserve 
that  ideal  they  took  care  to  see  that  it  was  not 
debased  by  entrusting  its  preservation  to  public 
hirelings.  This  was  a  conception  of  military 
service  that  vanished  with  many  other  enlight- 
ened ideas  upon  the  advent  of  that  dark  age 
which  spread  its  impenetrable  gloom  over  the 
unformed  peoples  of  Northern  and  Central 
Europe  and  obscured  for  centuries  the  culture 
of  the  southern  races. 

The  invasions  of  the  Barbarians  destroyed 
the  noble  military  ideals  of  Rome;  organized 
national  military  systems  disappeared  in 
Europe.  For  many  centuries  armies  had  no 
other  basis  than  that  of  feudal  constitution. 

19 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

The  feudal  system  compelled  Sovereigns  to 
rely  upon  temporary  assemblages  of  men,  un- 
trained, undisciplined,  and  wholly  lacking  in 
coordination.  The  Crusades  did  much  to  de- 
velop the  idea  of  cooperation  between  small 
military  units  combined  for  common  action, 
and  in  these  great  military  enterprises  may  be 
found  the  origin  of  larger  permanent  armed 
forces  than  had  been  employed  before. 

Under  the  feudal  system  Sovereigns  were 
completely  at  the  mercy  of  their  vassal  lords. 
In  order  to  free  themselves  from  this  uncer- 
tain dependence,  as  soon  as  their  means  war- 
ranted it  they  began  to  constitute  their  own 
armed  forces.  To  accomplish  this  they  were 
compelled  to  resort  to  the  mercenary  system 
under  which  volunteers  in  their  service  received 
compensation.  To  facilitate  the  raising  of 
armies  sovereigns  were  obliged  to  employ 
agents,  usually  officers  of  credit  and  renown, 
who,  having  been  engaged  in  the  military  pro- 
fession from  early  life,  were  acquainted  with 
many  men  able  to  aid  them  and  willing  to 
share  their  fortunes.  Each  of  these  had  their 
clients,  and  regiments  were  furnished  by  them 
under  contract  and  competition.  Such  a  sys- 
tem could  not  have  flourished  had  the  fighting 

20 


MEDIEVAL  MILITARY  SYSTEMS 

men  of  the  day  not  been  desperately  poor  and 
willing  to  shed  their  blood  in  quest  of  a  happier 
lot  than  befell  them  in  civil  life.  The  motive 
of  these  mercenaries  was  not  the  purpose  of 
fulfilling  a  duty  toward  their  Sovereign,  of  de- 
fending their  country  and  gaining  the  glorious 
reward  of  public  esteem.  Soldiers  and  cap- 
tains alike  craved  riches  and  served  with  no 
other  reward  in  view.  The  system  was  a  de- 
generating one,  and  the  purely  mercenary  in- 
stincts of  the  hired  soldiery  made  them  danger- 
ous to  employer  and  enemy  alike,  for  with  them 
it  was  simply  a  question  of  where  lay  the  best 
pay.  They  would  fight  bravely  until  paid  not 
to  do  so!  Small  wonder  that  the  dregs  of 
society  were  arrayed  beneath  the  banners  of 
contending  sovereigns  as  the  last  resort  for 
their  subsistence,  and  that  civilians  came  to  re- 
gard professional  soldiers  with  contempt. 

The  invention  of  gun  powder  brought  about 
a  complete  revolution  in  the  military  system  of 
Europe.  The  art  of  war  now  became  a  science ; 
the  skillful  and  not  the  merely  brave  man  was 
henceforth  to  win  the  victories.  But  it  took 
long  practice  to  make  men  skillful  with  fire 
arms,  and  warfare  could  be  waged  successfully 
only  by  experienced  troops.    Even  in  peace, 

21 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

therefore,  it  became  necessary  for  sovereigns 
to  maintain  standing  armies. 

About  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century 
Okran,  son  and  successor  of  Othman,  the 
founder  of  the  Ottoman  Turkish  Empire,  or- 
ganized a  special  corps  of  picked  troops  known 
as  janizaries  and  composed  largely  of  Chris- 
tians. This  corps  was  greatly  improved  by 
Amurath  I.  about  1360,  and  increased  in 
strength  to  12,000  men.  It  soon  became  the  bul- 
wark of  the  Empire,  and,  like  the  Eoman  Pre- 
torians  and  Russian  Streltsi,  a  dictatorial 
power.  It  was  a  body  of  warriors  notable  for 
their  efficiency,  and  this  efficiency  was  seen  of  all 
to  be  not  alone  due  to  the  fierce  character  of 
its  members  but  to  organization  and  training 
as  well. 

The  first  organization  of  a  standing  army  in 
Europe  was  effected  by  Charles  VII.  of  France, 
in  1445,  and  he  was  supported  in  his  costly  en- 
terprise by  the  towns  and  provinces.  The 
soldiers  were  mercenaries,  but  had  the  virtue 
of  being  permanently  employed  in  time  of  peace, 
not  only  for  training  but  as  national  police. 
Commerce  began  to  prosper  in  France  under 
the  orderly  reign  which  ensued,  traveling  be- 
came safe,  and  the  merchant  and  husbandman 

22 


MEDIEVAL  MILITARY  SYSTEMS 

could  thenceforth  attend  securely  to  their  busi- 
ness without  fear  of  being  robbed  of  their 
goods,  horses,  and  cattle  by  predatory  bands. 
From  this  return  to  civilization  dates  the  de- 
cline of  chivalry.  The  large  body  of  regular, 
disciplined  troops  which  Charles  VII.  main- 
tained when  there  was  scarcely  a  single  com- 
pany permanently  under  arms  elsewhere,  gave 
France  such  superiority  over  her  neighbors 
that  in  self-defense  they  were  obliged  to  follow 
her  example.  Henceforth,  in  Europe,  standing 
armies  of  regularly  employed  and  trained 
troops  became  the  general  order  of  the  day. 

The  Swiss  mercenaries  were  in  great  demand 
among  the  rulers  of  Europe  during  the  middle 
ages,  because  of  their  superior  military  quali- 
ties, and  were  to  be  found  in  the  standing  armies 
of  almost  every  State.  The  increasing  popu- 
larity of  the  regular  mercenary  system  when 
reduced  to  order  soon  caused  voluntary  patri- 
otic service  to  cease  altogether  except  in  Eng- 
land, and  it  was  only  there  that  the  old  practice 
of  calling  out  quotas  of  unskilled  fighting  men 
was  adhered  to.  .The  mercenary  was,  there- 
fore, in  a  sense,  the  liberator  of  the  masses 
from  enforced  military  service,  except  in  time 

23 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

of  serious  war.  In  their  freedom  the  people 
tasted  the  sweets  of  peaceful  pursuits  and  for 
a  while  were  well  satisfied  to  pay  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  military  professional. 


24 


CHAPTER  ni 

ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF   THE   MODERN 
NATIONAL  ARMY 

SATISFACTION  with  the  purely  mercenary 
system  was  short  lived.  In  peace  it  was 
not  without  its  advantages  as  the  foreign  hire- 
lings proved  fairly  efficient  as  national  police. 
The  objections  to  a  standing  army  of  foreign 
soldiery  for  a  while  seemed  to  be  counterbal- 
anced by  the  advantage  to  the  people  accruing 
from  their  own  release  from  military  service. 
But  as  dependence  upon  such  troops  became 
more  general  in  war  as  well  as  in  peace,  dis- 
trust of  them  spread  rapidly.  The  danger  of 
intrusting  the  safety  of  the  State  to  foreign 
mercenaries,  reinforced  by  the  lowest  caste  of 
national  society,  became  apparent  to  all  men, 
and  this  perception  induced  a  reaction  of  sen- 
timent. 

It  was  the  sentiment  inducing  this  reaction 
that  inspired  Bacon  in  the  composition  of  his 

25 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

famous  essay  on  war  in  which  he  wrote: 
**  Walled  towns,  stored  arsenals  and  armories, 
goodly  races  of  horse,  chariots  of  war,  ele- 
phants, ordnance,  artillery,  and  the  like;  all 
this  is  but  a  sheep  in  a  lion's  skin,  except  the 
breed  and  disposition  of  the  people  be  stout 
and  warlike."  And  then  he  added:  ** There- 
fore, let  any  prince  or  State  think  soberly  of 
his  forces,  except  his  militia  of  natives  be  of 
good  and  valiant  soldiers.  And  let  princes  on 
the  other  side,  that  have  subjects  of  martial 
disposition,  know  their  own  strength,  unless 
they  be  otherwise  wanting  unto  themselves. 
As  for  mercenary  forces,  which  is  the  help  in 
this  case,  all  examples  shew  that  whatsoever 
estate  or  prince  doth  rest  upon  them,  he  may 
spread  his  feathers  for  a  time,  but  will  mew 
them  soon  after." 

The  advice  of  Bacon  was  sound,  and  no  doubt 
did  much  to  confirm  the  English  people  in  their 
prejudices  against  the  mercenary  armies  of 
Europe  and  in  their  faith  in  their  ancient  militia 
institution.  Its  force  was  also  perceived  in 
Europe  where  the  subsequent  development  was 
strikingly  different,  however,  from  that  in 
Britain. 

England,  we  shall  see,  rigidly  adhered  to  the 
26 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ARMY 

ancient  system  of  the  untrained  Saxon  fyrd, 
under  which  system  all  men  were  compelled  to 
render  military  service  at  call.  In  Europe  the 
conception  that  all  men  were  liable  for  military 
service  also  prevailed,  but  a  new  development 
set  in  leading  to  a  trained  standing  army  based 
on  compulsory  service  with  exemptions  to  cer- 
tain classes  or  upon  certain  conditions. 

Sweden  was  the  first  country  in  Europe  that 
built  up  a  regular,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
strictly  national,  military  organization.  The 
small  standing  armies  had  hitherto  been  purely 
mercenary  and  had  served  in  peace  as  a  gen- 
darmerie or  species  of  guard  of  honor  to  the 
King.  In  case  of  war  additional  troops  had 
to  be  raised  by  conscription,  or  under  a  rude 
militia  system,  by  voluntary  or  press  gang  en- 
listments, or  by  the  purchase  of  more  mercen- 
aries. 

As  early  as  the  sixteenth  century  the  Vasa 
kings  of  Sweden  laid  the  foundation  of  a  na- 
tional regular  army,  and  it  remained  for  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus  to  perfect  it.  It  consisted  of 
a  given  number  of  regular  troops,  raised,  paid, 
fed  and  equipped  by  the  State,  and  back  of 
these  stood  a  militia  kept  up  by  the  people. 
The  regulars  of  men  constantly  with  the  colors 

27 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  / 

were  intended  for  wars  outside  the  national  ter- 
ritory ;  the  militia  for  the  defense  of  the  father- 
land. The  regulars  were  kept  at  full  strength 
by  drafts  from  the  militia.  Service  was  based 
as  in  ancient  Egypt  on  land  tenure,  and  all  able- 
bodied  males  from  fifteen  years  up  were  liable 
thereto.  Gustavus  introduced  the  novel  method 
of  assigning  to  each  soldier  a  certain  parcel  of 
land  sufficient  for  his  support  and  equipment. 

After  Sweden,  France  was  the  first  country, 
under  the  leadership  of  Louvois,  the  great  war 
minister  of  Louis  XIV.,  to  found  a  permanent 
national  force.  Then  followed  Brandenburg 
under  the  Great  Elector,  in  turn  followed  by  the 
other  States  of  Europe.  After  this  revolution 
in  the  military  systems  of  Europe  all  the  men 
with  the  colors  were  not  disbanded  at  the  close 
of  any  given  war. 

Before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  people  of  Europe  had  virtually  reshoul- 
dered  the  obligation  of  military  service  in  time 
of  peace. 

In  practice,  however,  the  peace  armies  were 
largely  composed  of  volunteers,  and  the  people 
were  more  or  less  free  to  serve  with  the  colors, 
or  follow  peaceful  pursuits  as  they  saw  fit. 
Economic  and  social  conditions,  rather  than 

28 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ARMY 

laws,  compelled  an  increasing  number  of  them 
to  seek  military  service  in  time  of  peace.  Le- 
gal compulsion  was  not  necessary,  nor  was  uni- 
versal service  rigidly  enforced  in  time  of  war, 
though  all  were  liable. 

The  military  system  of  Frederick  the  Great 
more  nearly  approached  universal  compulsory 
service  than  any  before  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. But  Frederick's  system  was  very  differ- 
ent from  that  of  modern  Prussia,  and  plainly 
less  defensible  than  the  modern  voluntary  sys- 
tem. It  is  only  where  compulsion  strikes  all 
alike,  and  where  exemptions  do  not  discrimi- 
nate between  social  castes  that  the  system  is 
justifiable — otherwise  it  is  chargeable  with  an 
injustice  from  which  the  voluntary  system  is 
free.  That  war  should  be  a  citizen's  chosen 
profession  and  means  of  livelihood,  may  not  be 
desirable,  but  no  one  but  the  individual  soldier 
can  be  injured  by  mercenary  service,  and  so 
long  as  the  mercenary  soldier  enters  no  service 
but  that  of  his  own  country,  he  devotes  himself 
to  a  worthy  career.  Conscription  with  caste 
exemptions,  on  the  other  hand,  is  glaringly  un- 
just and  oppressive;  not  only  are  these  ex- 
emptions themselves  unjust,  but  so  long  as 
they  exist  it  is  impossible  to  put  upon  any  high 

29 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

ground  the  constrained  service  of  those  who 
are  non-exempt.  It  is  a  mockery  to  speak  of 
the  exalted  duty  of  defending  one's  country 
where  this  duty  is  not  made  universal,  or  where 
those  who  do  not  wish  to  pay  in  blood  may  sat- 
isfy their  personal  obligation  to  the  State  with 
money.  Under  such  a  system  compulsory  ser- 
vice is  a  shocking  tyranny  similar  to  the  levy- 
ing of  the  taille  upon  the  wretched  lower  classes 
of  old  France.  It  was  never  enforced  in  a 
country  unaccustomed  to  despotism  until 
adopted  in  the  United  States  in  1863  under  the 
Federal  Military  Draft  Law.  Moreover,  when 
the  exemptions  extend  to  whole  classes,  or  are 
purchased  with  money,  those  who  are  com- 
pelled to  serve  will  be  required  to  remain  with 
the  colors  a  longer  time  than  if  service  were  uni- 
versal. By  serving  many  years  soldiers  ac- 
quire the  character  of  a  professional  caste  and 
become  distinguished  in  thought  and  conduct 
from  the  rest  of  the  community,  even  though 
they  did  not  enter  the  army  originally  by  choice, 
or  to  make  it  their  profession. 

The  army  of  Frederick  was  raised  in  large 
part  by  conscription;  but  large  classes  of  per- 
sons, as  well  as  whole  towns  and  districts,  were 
exempted.    In  the  main  the  citizen  class  was 

30 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ARMY 

exempt,  while  the  peasantry  were  subject  to 
compulsory  service  and  were  too  poor  to  pur- 
chase exemption.  So  great  was  the  demand  for 
men,  and  so  scanty  the  supply,  that  a  term  of 
service  extending  over  twenty  years  was  neces- 
sary. 

What  could  have  been  more  tyrannical  than 
to  seize  upon  the  peasant  and  subject  him  to 
twenty  years  of  brutal  discipline  in  order  that 
he  might  defend  his  more  fortunate  fellows  and 
a  country  in  which  he  was  enslaved  to  their 
luxury?  He  owed  little  to  his  country,  less  to 
those  who  enjoyed  the  comforts  of  a  peaceful 
life  and  immunity  from  the  risks  of  war  at  his 
expense.  Such  a  system,  it  is  evident,  rested 
upon  ignorance  and  terrorism.  No  class  of 
people  who  claimed  the  fundamental  rights  of 
freemen  could  be  subjected  to  such  a  system. 
Those  who  to-day  would  tolerate  such  an  abuse 
of  their  manhood  would  not  possess  the  spirit 
requisite  for  good  soldiers.  The  early  Prus- 
sian system  was  weakest  precisely  where  the 
French  and  modern  system  of  Prussia  is  strong- 
est, that  is,  on  the  moral  side  of  universal  obli- 
gation. 

If  Gustavus,  Louvois,  or  Frederick  ever 
dreamed  of  a  universal  conscription,  notwith- 

31 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

standing  the  fact  that  all  men  in  Sweden, 
France,  and  Prussia  were  in  theory  liable  to 
service,  they  probably  dismissed  the  idea  from 
their  minds  as  hopelessly  impracticable;  nor 
did  Frederick,  even  in  the  extremity  of  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  seriously  consider  a  levee 
en  masse.  There  was  no  real  patriotism  in 
Prussia  during  Frederick's  time,  no  sense  of 
the  value  of  national  independence,  and  a  sys- 
tem of  universal  service  is  only  possible  where 
national  spirit  is  exceptionally  strong. 

It  remained  for  the  Democrats  of  France  to 
reestablish  the  ancient  Republican  system  of 
universal  compulsory  service.  Emperors  and 
kings  had  relied  upon  imperfect  military  sys- 
tems, under  which,  at  best,  the  full  strength  of 
a  nation  could  not  be  mobilized.  Eepublican 
France  retaught  the  world  that  citizens  owed 
their  flag  the  full  measure  of  their  support,  and 
that  they  could  be  made  to  serve  in  the  ranks 
under  a  properly  administered  system  of  na- 
tional conscription. 

The  Directory  which  succeeded  the  Conven- 
tion in  1798  keenly  felt  the  necessity  of  more 
effective  preparation  for  war  with  the  national 
enemies.  Its  armies  had  become  mere  beg- 
garly skeletons  and  the  best  regiments  were  en- 

32 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ARMY 

gaged  in  the  Egyptian  and  Syrian  Campaigns. 
Requisitions  failed  to  furnish  the  needed  re- 
cruits and  it  was  seen  that  the  old  revolutionary 
law  under  which  troops  had  been  raised  was 
inadequate  to  the  pressing  needs  of  the  State. 
Appealing  direct  to  the  military  experts  for 
new  proposals  for  the  recruiting  of  the  army, 
General  Jourdan  presented  a  plan  under  which 
all  able-bodied  men  between  the  ages  of  twenty 
and  twenty-five,  without  distinction  as  to  their 
social  conditions,  might  be  subjected  to  military 
service.  Jourdan 's  plan  was  adopted,  and  the 
famous  Conscription  Act  was  passed  forthwith. 
The  new  conscription  system  of  the  Directory 
was  far  less  harsh  than  the  old  system  of  re- 
quisitions. It  effected  one  entire  generation, 
and  by  arranging  the  military  population  into 
five  classes  it  permitted  the  calling  out  suc- 
cessively of  the  required  number  of  men,  leav- 
ing a  chance  of  drawing  lots  and  obtaining  sub- 
stitutes. This  system  has  practically  been  fol- 
lowed in  France  to  this  day.  It  was  appropri- 
ately revolutionary  at  the  time  of  its  adoption ; 
it  was  far  more  democratic  than  the  preexist- 
ing systems.  It  completely  revolutionized  the 
various  European  military  systems,  for  it 
proved  so  entirely  satisfactory  and  efficacious 

33 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

that  its  adoption  in  principle  was  enforced  npon 
all  other  States,  liberal  and  autocratic  alike. 
A  strict  and  unwavering  adherence  by  France 
to  the  system  of  Jourdan  has  seemingly  saved 
the  third  French  Republic.  Its  adoption  has 
also  no  doubt  preserved  the  democratic  institu- 
tions of  Great  Britain  as  well — if  not  the  free 
institutions  of  the  whole  world  for  the  time  be- 
ing. 


34 


CHAPTER  IV 

MILITARY  SERVICE   IN   ITS   MOST  DEMOCRATIC  FORM 

AMONG  the  advantages  of  a  monarchial 
form  of  government  over  a  government 
of  democratic  character,  is  commonly  included 
its  superior  capacity  for  war,  in  defense  as 
well  as  offense.  Yet,  Eepublican  France,  un- 
der the  national  conscriptive  system  which  she 
adopted  in  1798,  successfully  resisted  the 
combined  assaults  of  every  monarchy  in  Eu- 
rope until  conscription  had  drawn  to  the  col- 
ors her  last  able-bodied  man,  and  no  others 
remained  to  defend  the  Republic.  Fate  willed 
it  that  the  French  should  succumb  to  the  very 
institution  which  they  themselves  created — ^mili- 
tary conscription  in  the  hands  of  Prussia.  This 
is  not  fancy  but  fact,  for  who  shall  deny  that 
Bluecher  and  Gneisenau  determined  the  down- 
fall of  Buonaparte  in  1815  through  the  medium 
of  Prussia's  regenerated  power  which  was 
thrown  in  the  balance  of  the  Emperor's  fate! 

35 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

And  who  shall  deny  that  the  French  hope  of 
world  dominion  was  cast  down  in  the  nineteenth 
century  by  the  regenerated  military  power  of 
Europe  through  conscription,  as  has  been  that 
of  the  HohenzoUern  a  century  later  by  conscrip- 
tion in  Great  Britain  ? 

So  pregnant  with  power  has  been  the  exten- 
sion of  the  system  of  national  conscription, 
originated  by  the  French  and  perfected  by  the 
Prussians,  that  this  great  defensive  institution 
should  be  fully  traced  in  its  development  and 
analyzed  in  its  effects. 

Grustavus  made  all  able-bodied  men  effec- 
tively available  for  military  service.  The 
French  Republic  compelled  all  men  of  certain 
classes  actually  to  serve  with  the  colors.  But 
it  was  in  Prussia  that  the  opportunity  presented 
itself  of  realizing  what  elsewhere  would  have 
seemed  a  mere  pedantic  chimera — the  complete 
revival  of  the  citizen  armies  of  antiquity. 
There,  as  nowhere  else,  conditions  were  ripe 
for  the  reestablishment  of  a  national  army  in 
its  best  form,  for  the  Prussian  mind  had  be- 
come gradually  familiar  with  conscription  and 
was  in  1806  prepared  by  adversity  to  endure  a 
just  application  of  the  principle  of  universal 
service. 


MILITARY  SERVICE  IN  DEMOCRATIC  FORM 

To  Gerhard  Johann  David  Von  Scharnhorst 
belongs  the  credit  for  devising  the  machinery 
to  operate  the  new  system.  This  remarkable 
soldier  was  born  in  Hanover  in  1755.  Entering 
the  military  service  of  his  native  State,  he  be- 
came a  teacher  in  the  artillery  school  of  Han- 
over about  1780  and  in  that  capacity  found  op- 
portunity to  devote  himself  to  research  and  re- 
flection. His  assiduous  studies  were  inter- 
rupted when  he  was  called  upon  to  serve  in  the 
Campaigns  in  Flanders  from  1793  to  1795,  but 
in  1801  he  was  appointed  director  of  the  mili- 
tary school  of  Prussia,  and  later  served  through 
the  disastrous  Prussian  Campaigns  of  1806-7. 
After  the  crushing  defeat  of  Prussia  by  Napo- 
leon, Scharnhorst,  with  the  rank  of  general,  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  War  Department  and 
made  president  of  the  commission  charged  with 
the  reorganization  of  the  Prussian  army. 
Working  in  harmony  with  Stein,  Hardenberg, 
Gneisenau,  and  other  regenerators  of  Prussia's 
fallen  power,  he  did  much  to  restore  the  for- 
tunes of  his  adopted  country,  devising,  among 
other  things,  the  modern  system  of  universal 
compulsory  military  service. 

Scharnhorst  possessed  the  genius  requisite 
not  alone  for  great  thoughts  but  for  the  execu- 

37 


THE  CALL  OP  THE  REPUBLIC 

tion  of  his  ideas.  He  had  that  mastery  of 
means  and  detail  which  is  seldom  found  in  con- 
junction with  large  political  conceptions,  but, 
which  when  it  does  exist,  adapts  ideas  to  the 
practical  working  of  a  State,  instead  of  allow- 
ing them  to  die  a  melodious  death  in  the  ora- 
tory of  petty  politicians.  In  spite  of  the  popu- 
lar ridicule  which  Scharnhorst 's  conception  of 
a  citizen  army  subjected  him  to,  in  spite  of  the 
adverse  criticism  which  his  plan  elicited  from 
many  of  his  professional  contemporaries,  he 
persevered  and  gradually  won  over  such  men 
as  Stein,  Hardenberg,  Yorck,  and  Gneisenau 
to  the  loyal  and  successful  support  of  his 
revolutionary  proposals.  Such  was  the  dis- 
trust of  and  bigoted  opposition  to  the  system 
proposed  by  Scharnhorst  that  universal  ser- 
vice was  not  actually  enforced  until  after  his 
death,  but  he  laid  down  the  principles  and  pre- 
pared the  way  for  its  final  adoption. 

The  enrollment  of  foreigners  in  the  Prussian 
Army  was  abolished,  the  corporal  punishments 
of  Frederick  limited  to  flagrant  cases  of  indis- 
cipline, promotion  for  merit  was  established, 
and  military  administration  organized  and  sim- 
plified. The  organization  of  the  Landwehr 
and  Landsturm  was  begun,  and  so  promptly 

38 


MILITARY  SERVICE  IN  DEMOCRATIC  FORM 

effective  became  the  new  system  that  a  State 
whose  army  had  failed  utterly  at  Jena  was 
able  to  play  an  important  role,  by  means  of  its 
reorganized  army  under  Bluecher  and  Gneise- 
nau,  in  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon  in  1815, 
within  two  years  after  Scharnhorst's  death. 


39 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    ENGLISH    H>EAL    OF    VOLUNTARY    SEBVICE 

IT  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  notable  fact  that 
national  armies,  composed  of  the  entire 
body  of  citizens,  had  their  origin  among  ancient 
democratic  peoples  who  feared  to  entrust  the 
safety  of  their  free  institutions  to  the  hands 
of  any  but  the  citizens.  And  yet  to-day  the 
mercenary  system  remains  in  effect  in  but  one 
country  in  the  civilized  world,  and  that  coun- 
try is  the  greatest  democracy  of  all  times.  It 
is  natural  that  we  should  here  inquire  as  to  the 
reason  for  this  anomaly.  In  order  to  arrive 
at  a  full  understanding  of  the  causes  underly- 
ing the  American  attitude  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
view the  history  of  British  military  institutions. 
In  a  previous  work  the  writer  endeavored  to 
explain  this  anomaly  by  tracing  the  origin  and 
growth  of  a  racial  prejudice  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  against  standing  armies.*     It  will  now 

*  Empire  and  Armament. 

40 


ENGLISH  IDEAL  OF  VOLUNTARY  SERVICE 

be  attempted  to  show  more  fully  tliat  tlie  seed 
of  this  prejudice  was  sown  in  a  soil  peculiar  to 
England  by  reason  of  the  social  conditions  of 
that  insulated  State. 

The  right  to  bear  arms  was  inherent  in  the 
English  people ;  in  fact,  under  the  earliest  laws 
they  were  compelled  to  bear  arms  in  the  militia 
or  localized  military  forces. 

The  British  Militia  system  originated  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  fyrd  and  in  the  warlike  features 
of  the  posse  comMatus.  Alfred  the  Great  is 
supposed  to  have  created  the  fyrd^  later  called 
militia  from  the  Latin  miles,  meaning  a  soldier. 
Under  the  old  English  institution  of  villein 
socage  land-rents  were  paid  by  body  service  in 
the  fyrdy  the  able-bodied  men  of  each  family 
bearing  arms  in  numbers  proportionate  to  the 
land  held  by  the  family.  The  country  was  or- 
ganized into  earldoms,  hundreds,  tillings  (ten 
tillings  making  the  hundred),  and  families. 
The  earls,  thanes,  and  inferior  dignitaries  of 
State  were  entitled  to  certain  military  service 
from  the  villeins  or  serfs  attached  to  the  land, 
as  well  as  the  king,  so  that  the  really  necessary 
military  burden  was  multiplied  many  times. 
The  common  people,  comprised  of  the  freemen 
and  villeins,  willing  enough  to  respond  for  ser- 

41 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

vice  when  danger  actually  tkreatened  them, 
chafed  under  the  system  in  time  of  peace,  and 
regarded  military  service  at  such  a  time  as  an 
evil  and  unnecessary  interference  with  their 
civil  pursuits.  The  thanes,  however,  had  no 
real  interest  in  the  private  pursuits  of  their 
people.  So  long  as  they  received  their  due 
they  were  satisfied.  Hence,  there  existed  a 
very  natural  conflict  between  a  class  devoted  to 
civil  pursuits  and  a  ruling  caste  which  main- 
tained its  dignity  at  the  expense  of  that  class. 
Military  service  in  time  of  peace  was  the  bone  of 
contention.  Thus  did  the  common  people  of 
England  acquire  at  an  early  day  a  racial  prej- 
udice against  peace  armies  or  what  are  now 
called  standing  armies. 

After  the  decisive  defeat  of  Harold  at  Hast- 
ings in  1066,  the  old  Saxon  institution  of  the 
fyrd  ceased  to  exist  officially.  A  new  system 
of  laws  was  imposed  upon  the  people,  and  that 
system,  known  as  the  feudal  system  of  the  Nor- 
man conquerors,  embodied  a  military  institu- 
tion far  more  oppressive  to  the  common  people 
than  had  been  the  system  of  villein  socage. 
They  became,  in  fact,  no  more,  than  slaves  of  a 
military  order,  and  for  long  the  oppressed  Sax- 
ons struggled  to  keep  alive  the  fyrd  as  the  pref- 

42 


ENGLISH  IDEAL  OF  VOLUNTARY  SERVICE 

erable  of  two  evils.  An  institution,  whicli  had 
itself  been  unpopular,  the  people  now  cherished 
in  their  memory.  In  contrast  with  the  new 
order  it  seemed  decidedly  liberal  and  compara- 
tively free  from  the  objections  of  the  feudal 
system.  The  representatives  of  the  new  mili- 
tary institution  were  soldiers  from  birth;  and 
being  the  oppressors  of  a  vassal  people,  they 
brought  disrepute  upon  the  military  profession 
in  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes. 

Most  of  the  fighting  in  which  the  common 
people  of  England  were  called  upon  to  engage 
during  the  Middle  Ages  was  distinctly  intra- 
national or  internal  in  character,  and  even  when 
a  king  summoned  his  military  chieftains  to 
assemble  their  feudatories  for  a  war  against  the 
so-called  national  enemy,  the  cause  of  conflict 
was,  more  often  than  not,  one  in  which  the 
people  had  little  real  interest ;  it  was  at  best  an 
unpopular  cause.  The  military  vassals  were 
primarily  plain  civilians — their  welfare  lay  in 
peace.  The  military  service  they  were  called 
upon  to  render  their  feudal  lords  became  a  bur- 
den by  reason  of  its  frequency,  and  the  utter 
lack  of  personal  interest  among  the  fighting 
men  in  the  petty  quarrels  of  their  leaders. 
There  was  nothing  in  such  service  to  appeal  to 

43 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

the  patriotism  of  the  people — only  hardships 
rewarded  them  for  their  service.  But  the  Brit- 
ish subject  was  required  to  pay  his  rent  with 
his  ** sword  and  buckler/'  and  when  the  land-, 
lord  called  for  the  use  of  the  vassaPs  good  right 
arm,  with  a  curse  and  a  groan  the  plow  was 
left  in  the  furrow. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  feudal  system  re- 
acted upon  those  who  benefited  most  from  it. 
The  feudal  barons,  who,  in  their  petty,  internal 
struggles,  laid  such  a  heavy  burden  upon  their 
vassals,  were  in  turn  required  with  increasing 
frequency  to  support  their  king  in  war.  The 
same  complaint  which  the  people  made  against 
the  barons,  the  barons  now  began  to  make 
against  the  king.  So  long  as  military  service 
was  restricted  to  their  own  selfish  ends,  well 
and  good,  but  they  strenuously  resisted  the  de- 
mands of  the  overlord.  Objecting  as  they  did 
at  an  early  day  to  being  led  out  of  the  King- 
dom, it  was  King  John's  insistence  upon  for- 
eign service  that  led  to  Runnymede. 

Feudalism,  so  inseparably  associated  with 
military  power  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  was 
in  its  very  nature  destructive  of  human  liberty. 

The  possession  of  military  power  by  irrespon- 
sible barons  was  an  incitement  to  its  use  by 

44 


ENGLISH  IDEAL  OF  VOLUNTARY  SERVICE 

them  in  the  settlement  of  private  feuds;  the 
imperfect  subjection  of  vassals,  only  slightly 
less  powerful  than  their  lords,  led  to  frequent 
resistance  on  their  part;  and  the  absence  of  a 
strong  central  government,  resulting  from  the 
delegation  of  sovereign  rights,  diminished  the 
power  of  the  nominal  ruler  to  such  an  extent 
that  general  order  could  not  be  maintained. 
The  feudal  castle  was  no  more  nor  less  than  an 
armory — a  seat  of  military  power — and  though 
held  in  the  name  of  the  king,  it  was  a  base  of 
operations  to  despoil  and  tyrannize  over  the 
surrounding  country.  The  banner  that  floated 
from  its  embattled  walls  embodied  no  hope  or 
aspiration  of  the  lowly  who  watched  it  from 
their  squalid  huts — to  them  it  was  but  the  sym- 
bol of  oppression.  The  flag  they  were  called 
upon  to  serve  aroused  no  lofty  sentiments  in 
their  breasts,  nor  was  the  chieftain's  standard 
in  any  sense  emblematic  of  that  protection  in 
token  of  which  a  national  flag  is  now  designed. 
With  the  advent  of  the  thirteenth  century  new 
institutions  began  to  evolve  and  found  them- 
selves everywhere  repressed  by  feudalism. 
Town  life,  trade,  commerce,  and  a  well-to-do 
middle  class  grew  up  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation, and  gradually,  with  the  aid  of  the  urban 

45 


^THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

classes,  the  feudal  order  was  overthrown  and 
the  old  Saxon  institution  of  the  militia  was  re- 
established in  improved  form.  Indeed,  the  fyrd 
played  no  small  part  in  the  success  of  the  Mng 
in  reducing  the  feudal  barons  to  submission  to 
law  and  order ;  and  for  that  reason  the  militia 
system  was  more  highly  prized  than  ever  by 
the  people. 

Although  Henry  VI.  did,  in  1449,  employ  a 
small  mercenary  force  of  Italian  and  German — 
^^Brabazon'' — soldiers,  with  which  to  suppress 
Jack  Cade,  the  distrust  of  a  standing  army  of 
mercenaries  was  deep-rooted  in  the  British 
soul.  Released  from  military  oppression  the 
British  people,  cherishing  their  inherited  prej- 
udices against  the  old  order,  resolved  never 
more  to  countenance  military  domination.  Dis- 
taste for  permanent  military  service  in  every 
form  became  traditional  with  the  race. 

For  three  centuries  the  militia  was  the  sole 
reliance  of  England  for  defense.  Removed  by 
the  isolation  of  the  realm  from  the  maelstrom 
of  continuous  inter-state  strife  in  central  Eu- 
rope, the  wars  of  the  Continent  had  no  tend- 
ency to  evolve  in  England  a  greater  measure  of 
central  military  power  than  the  militia  system 
afforded.     In  order  that  they  might  contend 

46 


ENGLISH  IDEAL  OF  VOLUNTARY  SERVICE 

more  successfully  with  their  neighbors,  and  in 
as  much  as  centralized  power  was  essential  to 
the  existence  of  their  States,  the  people  of 
Europe  submitted  more  or  less  willingly  to  the 
process  of  military  centralization.  But  in  Eng- 
land, where  frequent  encroachments  from  the 
outside  did  not  intervene  to  compel  the  sur- 
render of  individual  liberties  in  the  common  de- 
fense, the  democratic  spirit  prevailed.  Indeed, 
not  only  were  the  very  causes  which  led  the 
people  of  the  Continent  to  accept  military  rule 
almost  entirely  absent,  but  in  England  the 
people,  arguing  from  their  old  experiences,  be- 
lieved that  the  centralization  of  military  power 
could  mean  for  them  only  a  compulsory  sur- 
render, without  compensatory  advantages,  of 
self-government.  Consequently  they  retained 
all  military  power  in  themselves  and  relied  upon 
the  ancient  militia  system  rather  than  upon  a 
trained  and  permanent  army  at  the  beck  and 
call  of  a  ruler  or  caste. 

The  repugnance  of  the  English  people  for  a 
standing  army  is  apparent  in  a  long  line  of  con- 
stitutional decisions  and  statutes  of  the  Eealm. 
There  are  many  early  statutes  protesting 
against  the  laws  of  the  Forest,  and  prohibiting 
martial  law. 

47 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

James  I.,  autocratic  and  imperious  by  na- 
ture, ignored  the  traditional  sentiments  of  his 
people,  and  undertook  to  buttress  his  usurpa- 
tions of  authority  by  the  organization  of  trained 
bands  of  soldiery.  Martial  law  was  reestab- 
lished by  him,  and  with  the  aid  of  their  mer- 
cenary troops  he  and  his  son,  Charles  I.,  sub- 
jected their  subjects  to  many  military  oppres- 
sions. The  Petition  of  Eights  forcefully  sets 
forth  the  protests  of  the  English  people  against 
the  tyrannical  abuses  of  the  Stuarts.  The  Eng- 
lishmen viewed  with  alarm  the  establishment  of 
a  standing  army  in  their  midst  and  were  quick 
to  attribute  thereto  the  evils  of  which  they  com- 
plained. Again  did  a  standing  army  appear  to 
them  to  be  the  inevitable  instrument  of  tyranny. 
And  so  they  wrote  into  their  Constitutional 
Bill  of  Eights  (A.  D.  1689)  the  following  signifi- 
cant clause : 

**That  the  raising  or  keeping  a  standing 
army,  within  the  Kingdome  in  time  of  peace,  un- 
less it  be  with  the  consent  of  Parleament,  is 
against  the  law.*' 

The  English  Bill  of  Eights  was  a  national 
writ  embodying  the  experience  and  the  fears 
of  a  race  of  free,  liberty-loving  men.  The  pro- 
test it  promulgated  was  on  the  lip  of  every 

48 


ENGLISH  IDEAL  OF  VOLUNTARY  SERVICE 

Briton  and  has  ever  remained  a  warning  to 
the  would-be  usurpers  of  British  popular  in- 
stitutions, among  which  voluntary  military 
service  was  for  long  cherished  as  a  democratic 
ideal.  The  misconception  as  to  the  democratic 
nature  of  that  ideal  has  at  last  been  overcome 
— though  not  without  a  bitter  struggle. 


4A 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  INHEKITED  AMERICAN   IDEAL 

A  GREAT  migration  to  the  new  world  oc- 
curred in  tlie  seventeenth  century,  and 
British  subjects  brought  with  them  their  laws, 
their  customs,  and  their  prejudices  to  America. 

The  subordination  of  the  military  to  the  civil 
power  was  quite  as  much  a  cardinal  principle 
in  the  British  Colonies  as  it  was  at  home.  Win- 
throp  relates  that  when,  during  the  Antinomian 
excitement,  it  was  proposed  to  incorporate  a 
military  organization,  the  magistrates  of  Bos- 
ton reflected  on  the  example  of  the  Pretorian 
Band  among  the  Romans  and  recalled  the 
Templars  of  Europe.  They  thought  *'how  dan- 
gerous it  might  be  to  erect  a  standing  authority 
of  military  men,  which  might  easily  in  time 
overthrow  the  civil  power,"  and  resolved  to 
*'stop  it  betimes.''  * 

The  anxiety  of  the  Colonists  was  ill-founded, 

*  Winthrop,  I.,  305. 

50 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

for  the  industrial  forces  in  colonial  society  so 
greatly  outweighed  the  military  as  to  effectu- 
ally remove  the  peril  that  was  feared.  It  is 
true  that  all  men  in  the  Colonies  were  soldiers 
of  necessity  in  their  struggles  with  the  hostile 
aborigines,  and  service  in  the  militia  at  call 
was  compulsory,  but  the  compulsion  was  that 
which  the  Colonists  imposed  upon  themselves 
in  the  interest  of  personal  self-defense.  They 
never  dreamed  of  vesting  with  power  a  mili- 
tary institution  beyond  their  immediate  control. 

There  were  few  real  soldiers  among  them. 
A  number  who  had  received  training  in  the 
European  armies  ventured  to  the  Colonies  with 
the  first  settlers,  but  their  successors  and  the 
great  body  of  their  contemJ)oraries  never 
gained  any  military  experience  save  that  which 
came  from  desultory  Indian  fighting  or  from 
an  occasional  muster.  Officers  and  privates 
alike  were  civilians;  they  had  been  husband- 
men, artisans  or  small  traders  at  home,  for 
the  most  part,  drawn  from  the  very  stratum  of 
society  in  which  the  prejudice  against  pro- 
fessional soldiery  was  the  quickest. 

In  the  Colonies  there  was  no  opportunity  for 
the  development  of  a  military  caste  or  spirit. 
Indian  warfare  at  best  entailed  only  an  oc- 

51 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

casional  scout,  march,  or  brief  campaign. 
Time  for  training  and  service  was  necessarily 
taken,  at  considerable  cost,  from  peaceful  oc- 
cupations which,  if  they  were  to  yield  even  a 
modest  livelihood,  demanded  strenuous  applica- 
tion and  effort. 
Says  Osgood: 

**  Families  were  large,  resources  were  smalL 
Population  was  sparsely  distributed.  The 
home  was  often  located  in  places  where  danger 
lurked,  and  where  the  presence  of  the  grown 
men  of  the  household  was  imperatively  needed 
for  protection.  Fields  must  be  planted  and 
harvests  gathered  at  the  proper  time,  or  the 
community  would  immediately  suffer  want. 
Under  these  conditions  it  was  impossible  for 
the  Colonists  to  do  more  than  organize  a  mili- 
tia system,  which  in  a  more  or  less  crude  way 
would  meet  the  need  for  defense.  Military  law, 
like  all  other  law,  emanated  directly  or  indi- 
rectly from  the  General  Court.  The  commit- 
tees and  administrative  boards  which  controlled 
and  directed  the  equipment  of  soldiers  and  di- 
rected their  movements  consisted  in  most  cases 
of  the  same  men  who  guided  the  affairs  of  the 
colony  in  civil  relations.     The  officers  were  in 

52 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

many  cases  elected  by  the  men — their  neigh- 
bors— ^whom  they  commanded,  and  in  all  cases 
they  derived  their  authority  from  an  elective 
body.  Under  these  conditions,  combined  with 
the  limited  resources  both  of  the  soldier  and  of 
the  colonial  treasury  from  which  his  wages 
were  paid,  and  with  the  fact  that  the  Com- 
missariat played  a  very  subordinate  part  in 
the  outfitting  of  a  force,  explain  why  it  was 
that  the  military  arrangements  of  the  Colonies 
were  crude,  and  their  soldiery  was  unfit  for 
long  periods  of  active  service. ' '  * 

The  system  thus  outlined  sufficed  for  the 
Colonists,  and  its  adequacy  to  their  needs  only 
confirmed  them  in  their  inherited  prejudices 
against  a  more  permanent  and  efficient  mili- 
tary system.  It  is  true  that  the  early  militia 
system  was  based  on  the  principle  of  the  assize 
of  arms,  which  implied  the  general  obligation 
of  all  adult  males  to  possess  arms,  and,  with 
certain  exceptions,  to  cooperate  in  the  work  of 
defense.  But  the  obligation  partook  not  so 
much  of  the  nature  of  a  cherished  privilege  as 

*  The  American  Colonies  in  the  17th  Century,  Osgood,  Vol.  I., 
pp.  497,  498.  Also  see  Bruce 's  Institutional  History  of  Vir- 
ginia m  the  17th  Century. 

53 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

an  unavoidable  burden.  In  this  duty,  as  in 
the  payment  of  taxes,  the  distinction  between 
the  freeman  and  the  non-freeman  almost  wholly 
disappeared.  There  was  nothing  in  the  system 
suggestive  of  universal  service  as  a  matter  of 
cherished  right  among  freemen. 

The  conditions  were  such,  indeed,  that  serv- 
ice in  the  common  defense  was  more  often  than 
not  rendered  at  the  expense  of  the  security  of 
the  individual  soldiers'  homes  and  property. 
The  militia  system  of  the  Colonies,  like  the 
feudal  system,  had  no  attractions  for  the  com- 
mon man.  It  could  only  have  intensified  the 
Colonists'  dislike  for  all  things  military,  and 
for  military  organization  and  discipline  in  par- 
ticular. These  men  and  their  sons  established 
the  customs  of  the  incipient  American  States; 
their  grandsons  won  with  their  blood  the  inde- 
pendence of  those  States  and  drafted  their  or- 
ganic laws.  Into  those  laws  passed  the  preju- 
dices of  British  men  with  the  hatred  of  military 
service  firmly  imbedded  in  their  souls.  Wrote 
George  Mason,  of  Virginia,  into  the  Bill  of 
Rights  of  the  first  Constitution  adopted  by  an 
American  State,  nineteen  days  before  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  Colonies  was  declared; 

54 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

'^That  a  well-regulated  militia,  composed  of 
the  body  of  the  people  trained  to  arms,  is  the 
proper,  natural,  and  safe  defense  of  a  free 
State;  that  standing  armies  in  time  of  peace 
should  be  avoided  as  dangerous  to  liberty ;  and 
that  in  all  cases  the  military  should  be  under 
strict  subordination  to,  and  governed  by,  the 
civil  power." 

Can  it  be  doubted  that  Mason  had  before  his 
eyes  the  English  Bill  of  Rights  when  he  under- 
took to  draft  the  instrument  which  should  em- 
body for  all  time  the  constitutional  guarantees 
of  British-born  freemen? 

Thus  was  reflected  that  undying  prejudice  of 
Britons  against  the  maintenance  of  armies  in 
time  of  peace,  only  to  be  emphasized  anew  by 
Jefferson,  who  in  his  last  message  to  Congress 
declared : 

^'For  a  people  who  are  free  and  who  mean 
to  remain  so,  a  well-organized  and  armed  mili- 
tia is  their  best  defense." 

But  all  British-speaking  men  were  not  de- 
luded by  their  prejudices  in  favor  of  the  obso- 
lete militia  system.  Wrote  John  Dryden  in 
satirical  vein  of  the  adored  citizen  soldiery : 

55 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

**And  now  in  fields  the  rude  militia  swarms, 
Mouths  without  hands,  maintain 'd  at  vast  expense, 
Li  peace  a  charge,  in  war  a  weak  defence ; 
Stout  once  a  month  they  march,  a  blustering  band. 
And  ever  but  in  times  of  need  at  hand." 

In  these  lines  Dryden  but  voiced  the  later 
experience  of  Washington  with  militia — the  ex- 
perience of  every  man  who  has  ever  been  called 
upon  to  command  such  troops. 

Wrote  Washington  to  Congress : 

**To  place  any  dependence  upon  militia  is 
assuredly  resting  upon  a  broken  staff.'' 

And  referring  in  the  same  letter  to  the  atti- 
tude of  the  people  of  the  Colonies  towards 
trained  troops,  he  added ; 

**The  jealousy  of  a  standing  army,  and  the 
evils  to  be  apprehended  from  one,  are  remote, 
and,  in  my  judgment,  situated  and  circum- 
stanced as  we  are,  not  at  all  to  be  dreaded ;  but 
the  consequences  of  wanting  one,  according  to 
my  ideas,  formed  from  the  present  view  of 
things,  is  certain  and  inevitable  ruin.  For  if 
I  was  called  upon  to  decide  upon  oath  whether 
the  militia  had  been  most  serviceable  or  hurt- 
ful, upon  the  whole  I  should  subscribe  to  the 
latter  view. ' ' 

56 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

Washington  was  a  wiser  man  than  Mason  or 
Jefferson,  nor  did  prejudice  blind  his  eyes  and 
cause  Mm  to  adopt  as  justifiable  under  changed 
conditions  the  inherited  convictions  of  English- 
men. Mason  and  Jefferson  looked  only  at  the 
English  Bill  of  Rights  of  1689,  and  saw  there 
the  ancient  inhibition  against  trained  soldiery. 
They  accepted  it  as  a  fact  that  soldiers  are  in- 
herently dangerous.  Their  conclusions  were 
not  based  on  any  confirmatory  experience,  but 
were  guided  solely  by  the  views  of  men  living 
under  an  ancient  order.  "Washington  thought 
for  himself,  and  distinguished  in  his  own  mind 
between  the  hireling  mercenaries  of  a  despot, 
who  gave  rise  to  the  inhibition  in  the  English 
Bill  of  Rights,  and  a  trained  army  composed 
of  citizens,  created  and  governed  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  a  free  people.  He  saw  no  logical 
analogy  between  the  two,  or  between  the  abuses 
of  the  feudal  system  of  ancient  England  and 
the  conditions  likely  to  obtain  in  a  modern  Re- 
public. Mason  and  Jefferson  failed  to  per- 
ceive that  the  character  of  the  individuals  com- 
prising a  standing  army  might  affect  its  charac- 
ter and  its  tendencies.  Washington  well  un- 
derstood that  the  mere  fact  of  adequate  train- 
ing to   enable   citizens   to   defend  themselves 

57 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

against  their  enemies  would  not  of  itself  cause 
them  to  attempt  to  usurp  their  own  liberties! 
Mason  and  Jefferson  were  unwilling  to  credit 
their  fellow  citizens  with  that  patriotism  and 
love  of  country  which  as  orators  they  so  fre- 
quently sought  to  arouse  and  invoke  for  the 
common  defense.  Their  mental  processes  on 
this  point  were  strangely  awry,  as  were  the  con- 
clusions of  those  whom  they  inlfluenced  in  their 
rigid  and  unreasoning  prejudices  against  sol- 
diers who,  in  America,  must  needs  possess  a 
common  interest  with  their  fellow  citizens. 

Mason  and  Jefferson  are  in  no  sense  respon- 
sible, as  we  have  seen,  for  those  prejudices. 
Their  views  were  but  representative  of  those 
entertained  by  ordinary  British  minds  of  their 
times.  In  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts, 
written  in  1780,  we  read  that  in  time  of  peace 
armies  are  dangerous  to  liberty. 

To  such  a  sad  plight  did  adherence  to  the  old 
militia  ideal  bring  the  United  States  in  1814 
that  compulsory  military  service  was  then 
proposed  as  the  only  means  of  successfully  con- 
tending with  Great  Britain.  The  framers  of 
the  proposed  law  had  in  mind  the  efficient  new 
military  system  of  Europe  and  saw  in  it,  as 
Scharnhorst  had  done  in  Prussia,  the  hope  of 

58 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

their  country.  But  the  American  Democracy, 
led  by  Webster,  tore  asunder  the  wise  proposal 
and  characterized  compulsory  military  service 
as  illegal  and  unconstitutional,  even  declaring 
it  to  be  the  right  of  the  States  to  prevent  by 
force  the  execution  of  such  a  law.  This  mis- 
taken attitude  on  the  part  of  one  so  powerful 
as  Webster  only  confirmed  the  American  view 
and  caused  the  ancient  prejudice  to  grip  the 
people  with  renewed  firmness.  They  paid  no 
heed  to  Clay,  who,  with  fine  disregard  of  Ameri- 
can prejudice,  retorted  in  answer  to  those  who 
feared  to  create  an  adequate  army,  that  he  had 
no  fear  of  a  standing  army  even  in  peace,  much 
less  in  war,  and  that  he  did  not  believe  a  stand- 
ing army  of  25,000  men,  even  if  corrupted  by 
ambitious  leaders,  would  be  a  threat  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  Republic.  And  then  they  read  with 
approval,  in  1835,  Tocqueville's  primer  of 
democracy  in  which  the  author  declared  that 
**  after  all,  and  in  spite  of  all  precautions,  a 
large  army  and  a  democratic  people  will  always 
be  a  source  of  great  danger;  the  most  effectual 
means  of  diminishing  that  danger  would  be  to 
reduce  the  army.  .  .  .'' 

Yet,  these  same  people  had  been  compelled 
to  resort  to  conscription  in  two  wars,  actually 

59 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

paying  the  enforced  conscripts  for  serving  their 
country  under  a  rigid  compulsion !  They  seem- 
ingly continued  to  repose  their  faith  in  a  vol- 
untary system  which  had  failed  in  every  crisis 
to  provide  the  necessary  troops  for  the  na- 
tional defense. 

Population  had  increased  greatly  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  Mexican  War.  So  few  troops 
were  required  in  that  war — about  100,000 — that 
the  voluntary  mercenary  system  was  not  over- 
taxed. The  fact  that  73,500  volunteers  re- 
sponded to  the  call  of  the  President  seemed  to 
establish  beyond  a  doubt  the  efficacy  of  the  old 
system.  *^The  events  of  these  few  months  af- 
ford a  gratifying  proof,''  declared  President 
Polk,  *^that  our  country  can,  under  any  emer- 
gency, confidently  rely  for  the  maintenance  of 
her  honor  and  the  defense  of  her  rights  on  an 
effective  force  ready  at  all  times  voluntarily  to 
relinquish  the  comforts  of  home  for  the  perils 
and  privations  of  camp. ' '  And  to  this  he  added 
that  the  ready  response  proved  *Hhat  our  peo- 
ple love  their  institutions  and  are  ever  ready 
to  defend  and  protect  them.'' 

But  what  would  this  same  President  have  had 
to  say  on  this  point  two  decades  later? 

During  the  war  between  the  States  two  dis- 
60 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

tinct  sections  of  the  American  people  were  ar- 
rayed against  each  other  in  a  life  and  death 
struggle  for  existence — such  a  struggle  as  has 
always  brought  a  great  majority  of  fighting 
men  to  the  colors.  Conditions  are  such  in  in- 
ternecine wars  that  men  are  under  the  strongest 
moral  compulsion  to  take  up  arms.  Yet,  with 
a  total  population  of  approximately  thirty-five 
miUion  people,  it  required  a  combination  of  the 
voluntary  mercenary,  the  conscriptive,  and  the 
bounty  systems  to  bring  three  million  men  to 
the  colors,  of  which  number  one  million  were 
furnished  by  the  South  with  a  military  popula- 
tion of  seven  million  whites.  Thus,  in  the 
South  one-seventh,  and  in  the  North  less  than 
one-twelfth  of  the  population  was  in  arms  dur- 
ing the  whole  four  years  of  the  war,  and  never, 
perhaps,  more  than  half  this  proportion  during 
any  given  year.  Conscription  had  to  be 
adopted  by  the  Confederate  States  in  April, 
1862,  or  at  the  close  of  the  first  year  of  the 
war,  and  in  the  Spring  of  1863  by  the  Federal 
Government.  In  the  United  States  proper, 
then,  it  became  necessary  to  resort  not  only  to 
a  system  of  drafting,  stoutly  maintained  by 
many  authorities  to  have  been  unconstitutional 
in  its  unjust  discriminations  in  favor  of  the 

61 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

rich  who  were  allowed  to  purchase  their  exemp- 
tion from  service,  but  the  law  was  most  un- 
democratic in  nature  and  repugnant  to  every 
principle  of  free  government. 

There  were  many  good  and  honest  citizens  in 
the  Union  and  Confederate  armies.  This  class 
did  not  suffice,  however,  for  the  national  defense 
in  the  case  of  either  belligerent.  The  humili- 
ating spectacle  was  presented  to  the  world  of 
peoples  loudly  partisan  in  the  espousal  of 
democracy  being  compelled  to  impress  by  force 
their  fellow  citizens  into  the  armies  of  their 
republics  and  pay  them  for  an  enforced  service 
which  in  Europe  was,  and  is,  more  or  less  freely 
rendered  from  a  patriotic  motive  alone. 

The  devotion,  the  loyalty,  and  the  heroic 
deeds  of  American  volunteers,  comprise  many 
fine  chapters  of  American  History.  But  there 
are  many  dark  pages  from  which  we  would  fain 
avert  our  eyes,  which  recount  the  selfishness, 
the  disloyalty,  the  unpatriotic  attitude  of  an- 
other and  larger  class  of  American  citizens  in 
the  three  greatest  wars  of  the  Republic.  We 
may  justly  doubt  if  a  great  crisis  would  find 
that  class  more  willing  than  heretofore  to  re- 
spond to  the  nation's  call.  Has  the  increased 
ease,  the  muscular  relaxation,  the  diminishing 

62 


THE  INHERITED  AMERICAN  IDEAL 

homogeneity  of  the  nation,  made  it  easier  for 
these  men  to  surrender  the  luxuries  of  seden- 
tary life  and  manfully  assume  the  burden  of 
the  soldier  in  the  hour  of  his  country's  need? 
In  answering  this  question  we  must  not  con- 
sider the  spirit  which  would  animate  the  for- 
ward, the  strong  of  heart,  those  who  would 
comprise  the  first  million  recruits,  untrained 
but  willing;  the  question  is — ^Will  the  second 
and  the  third  and  the  fourth  and  the  fifth  mil- 
lion harken  to  the  bugle  call  of  the  EepublicI 


63 


CHAPTER  Vn 

THE  AMEBICAN  MIUTABY  SYSTEM 

WHILE  all  able-bodied  citizens  of  America 
are  liable,  under  the  organic  law  of  the 
United  States,  for  military  service  in  the  mili- 
tia, universal  liability  to  military  service  is  a 
mere  legal  fiction,  and  there  is  no  obligation 
upon  the  citizens  to  receive  military  training. 
The  constitutional  provision  for  universal  ser- 
vice has  never  been  even  partially  enforced. 
The  American  system  is  purely  a  voluntary 
mercenary  one  in  practice,  whatever  it  may  be 
in  theory.  Nor  is  citizenship  a  requisite  quali- 
fication for  service.  The  system  is  based  on  the 
utterly  fallacious  conception  that  a  citizen  of  a 
Republic,  or  a  volunteer  of  foreign  birth,  should 
be  engaged  under  private  contract  and  paid  on 
a  scale  relatively  commensurate  with  the  earn- 
ing capacity  of  the  average  citizen  of  the  vol- 
unteer class  in  private  life ;  in  other  words  that 
he  who  elects  to  serve  in  defense  of  his  country 

64 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

should  be  rewarded  by  the  government  for  so 
doing.  To  the  national  mind  there  appears  no 
incongruity  in  the  practice  of  allowing  the  citi- 
zen to  determine  the  extent  of  his  own  obliga- 
tion to  the  Republic  and  in  his  being  paid  by 
his  fellow  citizens  for  defending  his  own  rights. 
The  national  obtuseness  on  this  point  would 
be  inexplicable  did  we  not  know  that  the  mer- 
cenary system  had  its  origin  at  a  time  when 
a  more  or  less  complete  lack  of  community  of 
interest  existed  between  government  and  gov- 
erned, sovereign  and  subjects. 

We  have  seen  that  under  the  Constitution  all 
citizens  of  a  specified  age  are  liable  to  mili- 
tary service.  Are  we  to  assume  that  the  defi- 
nite provisions  of  the  Constitution  are  mean- 
ingless ? 

To  understand  the  intent  of  any  law  one  must 
consider  carefully  the  circumstances  attending 
its  enactment.  When  the  Constitution  was 
drafted  a  large  proportion  of  our  citizens  were 
fitted  by  the  life  they  led  to  become  capable 
soldiers  with  comparatively  little  actual  train- 
ing. Their  struggle  with  nature  hardened  their 
bodies  and  familiarized  them  with  woodcraft 
and  firearms.  Most  of  them  were  horsemen, 
and  great  numbers  of  our  Colonists  were  actu- 

65 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

ally  frontiersmen  and,  therefore,  soldiers  by 
nature.  Organization  and  leadership  alone  were 
lacking  to  convert  these  men  into  a  formidable 
military  force.  The  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, therefore,  and  the  State  Legislatures,  felt 
that  a  small  standing  army  which  would  serve 
as  a  nucleus  for  a  sudden  expansion  of  the  na- 
tional forces,  was  sufficient  to  the  needs  of  the 
country,  isolated  as  it  was  from  hostile  neigh- 
bors. They  believed  that  time  would  always  be 
available  in  case  of  danger  in  which  to  develop 
the  militia,  or  citizens,  into  soldiers. 

The  State  troops,  or  semi-organized  militia, 
retained  by  the  several  Colonies  when  they  be- 
came States  of  the  Union,  were  but  an  expres- 
sion of  State  sovereignty.  There  was  really 
no  such  thing  in  1787  as  an  American  people 
in  the  present  sense.  On  the  contrary  there 
were  thirteen  peoples,  each  intensely  jealous 
of  the  political  power  of  the  other  twelve. 
State  troops  were  maintained  because  it  was 
thought  prudent  by  the  States  that  some  force 
should  stand  behind  their  individual  Govern- 
ments, as  a  protection  to  the  sovereign  rights 
of  those  Governments  against  aggression  from 
a  foreign  enemy,  the  central  Government,  or 
any  other  State  government,  as  the  case  might 

66 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

be.  State  troops  were,  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  words,  but  the  expression  of  State  sov- 
ereignty. To-day  they  are  a  relic  of  the  past. 
They  are  superfluous  as  well  as  illogical,  and 
far  less  efficient,  and  more  expensive  for  in- 
terior police  purposes  than  State  constabula- 
ries. 

Great  changes  have  occurred  in  the  quality 
of  the  citizen  soldiery  authorized  in  the  Con- 
stitution, as  well  as  in  the  early  political  condi- 
tions which  justified  the  maintenance  of  State 
troops.  That  degree  of  training  and  fitness 
for  instant  military  service  which  nature  for- 
merly conferred  upon  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  is,  under  present  conditions,  almost 
wholly  lacking.  In  order,  therefore,  to  make 
the  citizenry  of  the  Nation  relatively  as  com- 
petent for  national  defense  as  it  was  at  the 
time  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  it  is  incum- 
bent upon  the  central  Government  to  supply 
by  artificial  methods  that  which  nature  formerly 
provided.  If  this  be  not  done,  the  Constitu- 
tional provisions  become  meaningless  and  of 
no  effect.  It  was  never  contemplated  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  that  changed  con- 
ditions should  be  allowed  to  reduce  their  scheme 
of  national  defense  to  a  state  of  ineffectiveness. 

67 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

Had  they  contemplated  an  inhibition  against 
the  actual  training  of  the  militia  upon  which 
the  country  was  to  rely,  a  system  of  training 
under  which  nature  could  be  supplemented  by 
science,  most  assuredly  they  would  have  em- 
bodied that  restriction  in  the  Constitution,  or 
in  the  law  of  the  land.  Indeed,  the  circum- 
stances contemporaneous  with  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution  seem  to  indicate  that  it  is  the 
present  duty  of  the  Federal  Government  to 
transform  the  citizenry  of  the  Nation  into  a 
militia  relatively  as  efficient  in  a  military  sense 
as  it  was  in  1787,  and  to  render  our  citizens 
relatively  as  efficient,  the  modem  demands  of 
military  science  must  be  thoroughly  considered. 
Under  the  Constitution  itself,  the  organic  law 
of  the  land,  there  is  no  lack  whatever  of  au- 
thority for  the  establishment  of  universal  com- 
pulsory military  service,  unless  the  word  mili- 
tia, as  used  therein,  be  construed  to  mean  citi- 
zens incapable  through  lack  of  natural  ability 
and  training  to  do  that  demanded  of  them. 
Surely  if  these  citizens  are  required  by  the  Con- 
stitution to  serve  in  the  defense  of  their  coun- 
try, it  was  expected  by  the-  framers  of  that 
highly  logical  instrument  that  they  would  be 
capable  of  doing  so.     That  they  are  not  now 

68 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

capable  of  defending  their  conntry  against  the 
superior  skill  of  foreign  armies,  and  the  highly- 
developed  military  power  of  other  States,  will 
become  apparent  to  any  thinking  man  who  in- 
telligently examines  the  facts.  Nor  can  we 
safely  rely  npon  a  mercenary  system  of  de- 
fense to  make  up  for  the  military  inefficiency 
of  our  citizen  soldiery. 

The  mercenary  system  was  born  of  an  age 
antecedent  to  the  birth  of  nationalism,  of  a  pe- 
riod in  which  there  were  peoples  who  acknowl- 
edged common  rulers,  but  who  asserted  small 
claim  to  an  ultimate  sovereignty  in  themselves. 
The  State  was  a  poorly  defined  institution,  and 
so  shadowy  was  its  form  that  title  of  popular 
right  in  the  State  hardly  suggested  itself  to 
the  loosely  knit  body  of  the  people.  Under 
such  circumstances  it  was  natural  that  military 
service  should  have  been  regarded  more  in  the 
light  of  service  to  the  Sovereign  than  as  an  ob- 
ligatory duty  to  themselves  through  the  State 
or  body  politic.  A  claim,  justly  recognized,  un- 
der the  conditions  obtaining  when  it  was  first 
asserted,  has  become  invalid  under  altered  cir- 
cumstances. All  enlightened  peoples  have  per- 
ceived this  fact  except  the  Americans,  and  they 
alone  have  failed  to  grasp  the  truth  simply  be- 


THE  CALL  OP  THE  REPUBLIC 

cause  their  govemment  has  not  yet  been  called 
upon  to  render  a  degree  of  protection  greater 
than  it  is  capable  of  doing  without  the  full 
strength  of  the  Nation  behind  it. 

When  States  developed  to  that  stage  in  which 
a  true  reciprocity  between  government  and  na- 
tionals came  into  being,  a  community  of  inter- 
est between  the  two  was  perceived  to  exist. 
The  people  rendered  allegiance  to  the  State  be- 
cause the  State  was  better  able  to  protect  them 
by  its  governmental  agencies  than  they  were  ca- 
pable of  defending  themselves  by  individual 
action.  It  was  a  firmer  allegiance  to  the  State 
that  made  the  State  more  able  to  protect  its 
nationals.  It  was  an  increased  community  of 
interest  among  a  people,  gathered  together  un- 
der natural  or  artificial  conditions,  that  caused 
them  to  render  their  collective  allegiance  for 
the  common  good.  Gradually  there  was  sub- 
scribed a  contract  between  rulers  and  subjects, 
and  however  fervently  the  former  may  have  de- 
nied the  fact  that  such  a  compact  existed,  na- 
ture had  witnessed  the  agreement  and  set  her 
seal  thereupon. 

At  first  the  king  regarded  his  subjects  as 
slaves  without  interest  in  his  estate.  He  pro- 
vided for  the  protection  of  his  private  estate 

70 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

by  summoning  his  slaves  to  its  defense.  To  en- 
hance their  interest  in  his  personal  affairs  he 
rewarded  them  by  a  greater  measure  of  per- 
sonal liberty,  then  by  land  grants,  and  finally 
by  pecuniary  remuneration.  In  time  the  free- 
men's attachment  to  the  land  which  had  been 
given  him  became  so  firm  that,  with  his  in- 
creased sense  of  liberty,  he  disputed  over  its 
title  with  his  king.  The  king  was  after  all  not 
a  divine  being  and  his  subjects  had  become 
numerous ;  therefore,  the  king  yielded  under  a 
compromise  settlement  in  which  he  consented 
that  the  freeman  should  enjoy  a  joint  right  with 
him  in  the  land  in  consideration  of  their  prom- 
ised support  and  allegiance  in  defending  the 
joint  estate. 

If  this  theory  of  State  and  citizen  be  logical 
and  correct,  how  can  a  people  to-day  who  hold 
their  national  estate  in  fee  simple,  admitting 
no  joint  ownership  therein  with  a  ruler,  justify 
a  mercenary  system  of  military  service  for  de- 
fense? If  upon  the  government  of  a  Republic 
there  rests  the  obligation  of  protecting  the  life 
and  property  of  the  citizen  nationals,  does  not 
the  duty  of  fulfilling  that  obligation  rest  wholly 
upon  the  ultimate  sovereign  of  the  State?    And 

71 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

who  is  the  ultimate  sovereign  of  a  Republic  but 
the  body  politic  or  the  people? 

The  cold  logic  of  the  foregoing  analysis  is 
recognized  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  that  provision  which  makes  all  able- 
bodied  men  liable  to  military  service.  It  has 
been  completely  ignored  by  the  Government 
erected  on  the  foundation  of  that  Constitution, 
and  the  persistent  neglect  has  been  winked  at 
by  the  people  because,  first,  for  many  years  they 
were  blinded  by  a  traditional  prejudice,  now 
happily  outlived,  and  second,  because  to-day 
their  moral  and  physical  muscles  have  become 
flabby  from  disuse,  or  because  their  luxury  and 
wealth  would  be  disturbed  by  the  performance 
of  the  inconvenient  duty  of  defending  them- 
selves! Why  trouble  to  defend  themselves  in 
this  democratic  age,  as  did  the  Egyptians,  the 
Romans,  and  the  Greeks,  when  mercenaries  of 
foreign  blood  may  be  hired  like  the  Brabazon 
and  Swiss  soldiers  of  the  dark  ages  to  bear  the 
burden  of  defense ! 

Story,  Curtis,  Burgess,  and  other  conamenta- 
tors  on  the  Constitution  have  done  much  to  ha- 
bituate the  American  mind  to  the  idea  of  a 
standing  army,  but  there  are  those,  even  in  our 
day,  who  with  the  political  outlook  of  a  parish 

72 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

beadle,  have  offset  with  oratorical  bluster  and 
nonsensities  the  intelligent  teaching  of  our  le- 
gal scholars.  It  was  but  recently  that  Senator 
Teller  profaned  the  senatorial  temple  with  the 
monstrous  caution  that  'Hhe  fighting  force  of 
a  republic  is  the  great  body  of  the  people,  and 
not  a  paid  soldiery  called  regulars.  You  must 
rely  upon  the  people  and  not  upon  an  army. 
An  army  is  a  vain  delusion.  It  may  to-day  be 
for  you;  it  may  be  against  you  to-morrow." 
Thus  did  this  statesman  of  medieval  thought 
aid  in  misleading  the  unthinking.  Fully  two 
centuries  behind  the  times,  he  resorted  to 
ancient  rather  than  modem  experience  to  sub- 
stantiate his  glib  assertions.  Where,  let  us  in- 
quire, can  Senator  Teller,  or  any  one  else,  point 
to  an  example  in  American  history  to  bear  out 
his  views?  Did  he  not  know  that  regular 
troops  under  Washington,  himself  a  military 
dictator,  established  the  liberties  of  America? 
Did  he  not  know  that  regular  troops  saved  the 
Republic  at  Bull  Run,  and  that  they  have  since 
served  the  nation  with  unequaled  faithfulness? 
The  American  people  profess  to  cherish  their 
constitutional  liberties — amendment  of  their 
Constitution  has  ordinarily  been  accomplished 
with  great  difficulty  and  in  certain  instances 

73 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

only  by  the  shedding  of  mnch  blood.  But  in 
one  great  particular  the  Constitution  has  been 
silently  amended  by  a  gradual  decay  in  the  re- 
gard of  the  people  for  the  democratic  institu- 
tion of  compulsory  militia  service.  Such  ser- 
vice has  never  been  enforced,  nor  even  de- 
manded by  the  Government,  and  regular  troops 
alone  have  defended  the  country  in  time  of 
peace.  Indeed,  the  constitutional  militia  of  the 
States  has  but  recently  been  converted  under 
the  Hay  Bill  into  an  inadequate  and  semi-pro- 
fessional army,  only  partially  trained  it  is  true, 
but  rewarded  for  its  service  by  mercenary  pay. 
Without  the  virtues  of  the  militia  which  it  was 
designed  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  to 
be,  with  all  the  weaknesses  of  an  ill-organized 
and  untrained  standing  army,  and  subject  to  all 
the  defects  of  the  mercenary  system,  it  now  ex- 
ists as  a  monument  to  the  popular  liberties  that 
have  been  sacrificed  to  political  misconception 
and  prejudice.  It  is  neither  a  wholly  national 
army  nor  a  force  belonging  wholly  to  the 
States ;  it  is  not  a  regular  or  standing  army  be- 
cause it  is  irregular  and  impermanent ;  it  is  not 
militia,  nor  is  it  professional  in  character.  One 
thing  only  it  seems  to  be — ^mercenary — ^paid  for 
its  services  by  the   State  on  an  extravagant 

74 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

scale  of  equality  with  trained,  regular  troops. 
The  so-called  American  militia  system  has  been 
developed  to  a  stage  of  imperfection  in  which  it 
can  only  serve  to  victimize  the  patriotic  volun- 
teers who  serve  under  it  by  rendering  them 
hopelessly  inefficient  as  a  military  force,  and  to 
victimize  the  innocent  people  who  have  been 
misled  into  reposing  their  confidence  in  it. 

And  here  it  should  be  remarked  that  it  is  not 
the  militiaman  of  America  that  is  at  fault.  He 
has  been  subjected  too  long  to  the  most  unjust 
criticism.  These  same  men  become  efficient  in 
the  regular  army.  They  themselves  are  in  no 
sense  inherently  lacking  in  soldierly  qualities. 
It  is  the  system  nnder  which  they  serve  that 
renders  them  hopelessly  inefficient  until  con- 
verted by  long  service  into  a  standing  army. 
The  people  of  America  owe  their  militiamen  the 
highest  respect  for  their  self-sacrificing  service 
under  the  most  adverse  conditions — conditions 
well  calculated  to  demoralize  seasoned  and 
experienced  troops.  But  they  should  loathe 
and  repudiate  the  system  that  prevents  these 
loyal  citizens  from  serving  their  country  to  the 
best  of  the  ability  that  is  in  them.  Let  us  tol- 
erate no  more  criticism  of  our  citizen  soldiers, 
for  they  are  but  the  vicarious  sacrifice  to  ig- 

75 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

norance  and  prejudice.  The  specious  argument 
that  untrained  American  citizens  performed 
prodigies  of  valor  in  the  war  between  the  States 
is  easily  disposed  of.  They  did  perform  valor- 
ous deeds  but  they  only  became  efficient  sol- 
diers in  a  school  of  bitter  experience.  The  un- 
trained citizen  soldiers  of  the  North  were  called 
upon  to  combat  the  untrained  citizen  soldiers  of 
the  South.  Both  became  regular,  trained  sol- 
diers while  fighting  against  troops  of  their  own 
quality.  In  the  cruel  process  of  training  which 
they  underwent  more  of  the  splendid  volunteers 
were  sacrificed  to  military  ignorance,  far  re- 
moved from  the  conflict,  than  perished  in  bat- 
tle. The  history  of  that  great  struggle  is  not  a 
justification  but  an  unanswerable  condemnation 
of  the  American  military  system.  The  school 
teachers  and  anti-army  people  of  America 
should  read  General  Emory  Upton's  epitome  of 
the  military  policy  of  the  United  States,  the 
former  in  order  that  they  may  instruct  aright 
American  youth  who  are  now  steeped  in  the 
sentimental  prevarications  of  school  histories, 
the  latter  to  the  end  of  personal  information 
concerning  a  subject  requiring  some  slight 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  those  who  would 
render  the  national  defense  even  more  precari- 

76 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

ous  than  at  present,  and  both  for  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  popular  understanding  of  our  na- 
tional military  problems. 

In  America  there  is  a  very  practical  objec- 
tion to  the  voluntary  system  in  addition  to  the 
general  objections  which  have  already  been 
cited.  Under  the  American  system  profes- 
sional learning  and  professional  training  are  al- 
most wholly  confined  to  the  very  small  volun- 
teer army.  Behind  that  army  stands  no  avail- 
able trained  force  for  instant  service.  Conse- 
quently, in  the  event  of  a  great  emergency  re- 
quiring so  small  an  army  to  bear  the  first  shock 
of  war,  the  casualties  would  be  confined  to  the 
trained  ofiicers  and  men  to  whom  the  country 
must  look  for  the  rapid  organization  and  train- 
ing of  the  militia  and  the  national  volunteers. 
This  is  what  actually  occurred  in  the  case  of 
Great  Britain  in  1914,  and  the  British  army  was 
many  times  larger  than  is  the  American  army. 
In  the  course  of  three  months  a  great  propor- 
tion of  the  trained  British  officers  and  men  were 
wiped  out  by  reason  of  the  overwhelming  and 
unreasonable  burden  that  was  thrown  upon 
them.  Any  system  that  thus  feeds  away  the 
military  seed  corn  of  a  nation  is  uneconomical 
and  foolhardy. 

77 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  any  war  of  seri- 
ous  proportions  in  which  the  United  States 
might  become  involved,  would  necessitate  the 
calling  into  the  field  of  a  million  men.  Mr. 
Bryan  asserts  that  that  number  of  volunteers 
would  respond  in  a  trice.  Assuming  that  this 
is  possible,  and  that  the  first  line  or  regular 
troops  were  not  immediately  involved,  either 
the  regular  army  would  be  seriously  crippled  by 
withdrawing  the  requisite  number  of  trained 
general,  field,  and  staff  officers  from  the  first 
line  for  the  proper  organization  and  training 
of  the  untutored  volunteers,  or  the  latter  would 
have  to  flounder  about  hopelessly  in  the  school 
of  bitter  experience,  at  great  expense  to  them- 
selves and  the  nation,  in  blood  and  time.  Con- 
ditions of  warfare  have  so  changed  as  to  neces- 
sitate the  mobilization  of  nations  rather  than 
small  armies,  and  a  limited  peace  army  no 
longer  possesses  the  expansive  power  necessary 
to  mold  and  absorb  the  citizen  volunteers  upon 
the  advent  of  war. 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  the  organized  militia 
of  the  United  States  is  found  in  time  of  peace 
a  large  proportion  of  the  citizens  who  possess 
natural  taste  combined  with  proper  qualifica- 
tions   for   military    service.     Being   the   first 

78 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

available  reserve  for  tlie  standing  army,  these 
men  would  naturally  be  rusbed  into  the  first 
line  of  defense  and  thus  be  compelled  to  share 
in  the  abnormal  losses  always  incident  to  the 
outbreak,  whether  from  casualties  in  a  quick 
succession  of  violent  conflicts,  physical  break- 
down due  to  abnormal  exertion,  or  disease. 
Thus  would  be  sacrificed  those  who,  next  to  the 
professional  soldiers,  are  best  fit  to  constitute 
the  commissioned  personnel  of  the  second  line 
or  volunteers.  Inadequate  and  incomplete  as 
their  militia  training  may  have  been,  the  men 
who  comprise  the  better  militia  regiments  are 
more  efficient  than  troops  with  no  training  at 
all,  and  among  the  forward,  the  loyal,  the  en- 
thusiastic militiamen  is  always  to  be  found 
material  capable  of  high  development.  The  ex- 
isting system  simply  ignores  these  possibilities ; 
it  is  lavishly  extravagant  in  its  wastefulness  of 
the  nation's  resources  of  officers  and  men.  The 
modern  social  science  has  never  been  applied  by 
American  statesmen  to  the  problem  of  national 
defense — the  most  vital  of  all  social  problems, 
for  upon  an  effective  and  successful  system  of 
defense  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  a  national 
society  depend. 
The  view  of  the  extreme  Pacifists  or  Disarma- 
79 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  EEPUBLIC 

mentists  that  an  army  is  a  useless  thing  and 
uneconomic  in  its  nature  may  be  correct.  One 
thing  is  certain :  an  army  actually  in  existence, 
and  maintained  at  vast  expense,  is  even  more 
uneconomic  if  inefficient  than  when  highly  pro- 
ficient. So  long  as  the  military  institution 
seems  warranted  in  the  eyes  of  government  it 
would  seem  desirable,  even  to  the  disarmamen- 
tists,  to  maintain  it  upon  the  most  economical 
basis,  both  from  the  material  and  social  stand- 
points. There  is  no  social  justification  or  sound 
economic  reason  for  the  military  institution  of 
the  United  States  as  presently  constituted.  It 
is  a  social  and  economic  anomaly  only  explica- 
ble by  a  complete  lack  of  scientific  consideration 
on  the  part  of  statesmen  of  the  national  prob- 
lem of  defense,  coupled  with  the  unreasoning 
prejudices  of  the  people  which  cause  them  to 
ignore  the  counsel  of  military  men  who  under- 
stand that  problem  in  the  light  of  modern 
science. 

To  the  recent  military  legislation  there  are 
many  objections  from  a  purely  military  stand- 
point. It  is  not  designed  here  to  encroach  upon 
the  province  of  the  technical  authorities,  but  it 
should  be  pointed  out  that  the  Hay  Bill  pro- 
vides for  the  establishment  of  the  organized 

80 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

militia  on  the  basis  of  population,  making  of  it 
a  territorial  force.  The  result  is  that  where  the 
population  is  densest  the  militia  will  be  most 
numerous,  a  condition  which  has  no  regard  for 
the  strategic  necessities  of  defense.  It  so  hap- 
pens that  the  country  is  most  subject  to  land- 
invasion  where  population  is  very  thin;  there- 
fore, in  quarters  where  it  is  strategically  most 
vulnerable  it  will  be  the  most  poorly  defended. 
Congress  has  failed  so  far  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  potential  military  strength  of  the 
nation,  which  is  very  great,  and  its  actual 
strength.  It  has  failed  to  perceive  the  great 
truth  enunciated  by  the  philosopher.  Bacon, 
that  **  number  itself,  in  armies,  importeth  not 
much. ' '  It  is  the  strength  in  being  that  counts 
— the  actually  developed  power.  An  army  of 
vast  size,  as  a  whole,  is  nothing  more  than  a 
series  of  small  forces,  if  broken  up  and  distrib- 
uted in  fractions  incapable  of  being  concen- 
trated for  joint  action.  The  power  of  the  Amer- 
ican army  must  be  gauged  by  the  number  of 
trained  troops  that  can  be  united  promptly  at 
a  given  point.  On  paper  the  regular  army  of 
the  United  States  to-day  numbers  about  100,- 
000  men ;  its  actual  military  strength  is  that  of 
about  forty  thousand  men  at  the  most,  includ- 

81 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

ing  the  best  equipped  and  trained  militia 
troops,  for  a  greater  number  could  not  be  in- 
stantly assembled  at  any  one  point. 

The  problem  with  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  must  deal  is  one  of  statics.  Our 
untrained  and  partly  trained  fighting  men  may 
be  likened  to  potential  energy;  our  small  regu- 
lar or  standing  army  to  kinetic  or  developed, 
moving  energy.  Time  is  required  to  transform 
potential  into  kinetic  energy.  Formerly  the  sur- 
rounding seas,  through  the  barrier  to  invasion 
which  they  interposed,  insured  the  necessary 
time  for  the  transformation ;  to-day  those  same 
seas,  instead  of  being  a  protection,  afford  a 
means  of  rapid  and  secret  transportation  to  our 
shores.  Few  peoples  would  assume  to  engage 
in  war  with  the  United  States,  or  with  China,  if 
the  whole  potential  strength  of  either  of  these 
were  fully  developed.  No  Power  fears  China, 
and  almost  any  great  Power  could  inflict  tre- 
mendous losses  upon  the  United  States — for  de- 
fense contemplates  force  in  being,  not  poten- 
tial force,  and  the  time  requisite  to  the  trans- 
formation is  exactly  what  an  enemy  would  not 
allow  a  country  of  such  unlimited  undeveloped 
resources. 

In  the  United  States  there  exists  a  peculiar 
82 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

need  for  a  national  army.  So  diverse  are  the 
race  elements,  the  sectional  interests,  and  the 
local  traditions  of  the  people  inhabiting  the 
land,  that  some  great  common  interest  is  nec- 
essary to  fuse  the  conglomerate  mass  into  an 
American  people  with  a  truly  national  spirit — 
the  same  in  New  England,  the  South,  the  Mid- 
dle West,  and  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  Every  stu- 
dent of  political  science  tells  us  that  the  ten- 
dency of  the  Congressional  system  of  our  Gov- 
ernment is  to  make  the  representatives  of  the 
people  local  in  their  attachments.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  statesmen  in  the  broad,  national 
sense  are  so  rarely  found  in  our  political  life; 
our  system  simply  does  not  develop  them  as 
does  the  Parliamentary  system  under  which  a 
political  leader  is  the  representative  of  all  the 
people  without  regard  to  their  narrow,  sec- 
tional interests. 

The  ^^Pork-barrel,"  which  seems  to  play  so 
large  a  part  in  our  national  politics,  is  the  logi- 
cal result  of  the  narrow  representative  system 
on  which  Congress  is  based.  Some  great,  coun- 
teracting influence  would  seem  to  be  desirable 
in  order  to  impress  upon  the  people  of  all  sec- 
tions the  fact  that  the  Federal  Government  is 
entitled  to  a  common  service  on  their  part  in  re- 

83 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

turn  for  the  bounty  which  it  yields  so  liberally. 
Some  great  institution  is  necessary  to  the  life  of 
the  Nation  which  will  federalize  the  spirit  of 
our  people,  and  no  institution  suggests  itself 
that  is  so  eminently  adapted  to  this  purpose  as 
a  national  army  in  which  Federal  service  is 
compulsory.  Who  can  doubt  that  the  devotion 
of  two  or  three  years  of  their  lives  to  the  na- 
tional cause  would  generate  in  the  breasts  of 
our  citizens  a  deeper  and  a  higher  affection  and 
respect  for  the  flag  which  demanded  of  them  the 
common  sacrifice?  Who  can  doubt  that  out  of 
the  common  sacrifice  of  American  citizens 
would  grow  an  enlarged  community  of  national 
interest  among  them? 

The  results  suggested  are  obtainable  by 
means  of  a  large  national  army.  They  can  never 
flow  from  a  small  standing  army,  nor  from  a 
localized  militia,  however  perfectly  trained  the 
latter  may  be.  The  very  idea  that  military  ser- 
vice is  local  in  its  obligation  would  subvert  the 
fundamental  advantages  of  national  service 
which  have  already  been  outlined. 

There  has  been  much  written  and  said  during 
the  past  few  years  about  national  defense.  As 
yet  little  has  been  said  to  the  people  themselves 
concerning  the  ideal  system   of  national  de- 

84 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

fense.  It  would  seem  as  if  those  who  knew, 
feared  to  speak  prematurely,  and  have,  through 
a  mistaken  caution,  withheld  what  was  in  their 
minds.  But  the  time  has  come  when  it  is  not 
only  politic  to  speak  out  the  truth,  but  when  it 
is  the  duty  of  public  men  so  to  do.  Let  them 
no  longer  fear  the  organized,  political  influence 
of  the  National  Guard.  The  militia  has  been 
completely  disillusioned.  They  have  paid  the 
price  of  knowledge  in  experience,  and  a  very 
bitter  experience  at  that.  They  have  learned 
from  the  recent  mobilization  of  the  so-called 
National  Guard,  the  utter  futility  of  depending 
for  national  defense,  the  real  purpose  of  a  *  *  Na- 
tional Guard, ' '  upon  troops  that  must  be  trained 
and  equipped  after  the  national  danger  arises. 
They  now  know  that  no  system  of  defense  is 
efficient  or  adequate  to  our  needs  that  neces- 
sarily contemplates  the  creation  of  a  defensive 
force  on  the  instant ;  that  defense  does  not  con- 
template potential  strength,  but  actual  devel- 
oped strength.  They  see  that  for  an  army  to 
possess  the  latter  it  must  be  in  being  prepared 
in  advance.  They  have  learned  that  the  old 
militia  system  is  utterly  vicious,  and  they  be- 
lieve that  they  are  merely  the  victims  of  a  vi- 
cious system  which  renders  inefficient  in  large 

85 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

measure  the  fine  material  composing  the  mili- 
tia. They  know  that  the  men  of  the  militia  are 
inefficient,  not  for  any  reason  inherent  in  them- 
selves, but  simply  because  of  the  system  which 
makes  it  impossible  for  them  to  obtain  efficiency. 
We  have  unbounded  admiration  and  respect  for 
the  splendid  patriotism  of  our  militiamen  who 
have  abandoned  their  personal  obligations 
without  thought  of  themselves.  We  should 
loathe  and  detest  the  system  which  reduces  the 
sacrifices  of  these  superb  young  men  to  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  economic  waste.  Un- 
der a  proper  system  there  would  be  no  such 
waste. 

Is  it  unreasonable  to  contend  that  any  system 
which  causes  * '  seed  com  to  be  fed  to  cattle ' '  is 
wasteful?  The  militia  is  composed  of  young 
men,  capable  in  many  cases  of  becoming  com- 
missioned officers  for  the  discipline  and  training 
of  a  national  army.  Assume  that  our  militia 
is  thrown  into  a  serious  campaign.  Before  a 
national  army  could  be  recruited  the  proper 
material  for  its  officers  would  have  been  use- 
lessly consumed  as  enlisted  men  in  the  militia. 
Thus,  the  national  army  would  be  deprived  of 
the  best  material  now  in  the  country  for  its  offi- 

86 


THE  AMERICAN  MIJjITARY  SYSTEM 

cers,  namely,  the  young  men  who  comprise  the 
better  militia  organizations  to-day. 

We  have  seen  how  wasteful  is  the  present 
militia  system  of  the  partly  trained  personnel — 
of  those  to  whom  the  country  must  needs  look 
for  officers  for  its  volunteers  in  event  of  war. 
The  defect  already  discussed  is  a  glaring  one. 
But  in  the  existing  military  institution  there  is 
a  far  more  serious  fault  which  seems  all  the 
more  apparent  when  we  contemplate  the  vast 
numbers  of  modern  armies. 

There  may  be  many  persons  who  doubt  the 
probability  of  this  country  being  drawn  into  a 
war.  Even  these  will  hardly  deny  that,  should 
the  nation  become  involved  in  hostilities  with  a 
great  power,  a  million  men  would  be  called  to 
the  colors  as  a  minimum.  The  nation  has  had  it 
impressed  upon  it  how  long  it  would  take  to 
mobilize,  equip,  and  train  such  a  force.  The 
old  belief  that  thirty  days  would  suffice  for  the 
purpose  has,  fortunately,  been  dispelled,  yet, 
while  our  volunteers  were  being  assembled  the 
small  regular  army,  including  as  it  does  prac- 
tically all  the  trained  officers  and  men  of  the  na- 
tion, would  be  required  to  bear  the  distressing 
burden  of  defending  the  country.  Whence  would 
come  the  skilled  leaders  and  trained  organizers 

87 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

for  the  volunteers?  Either  the  regular  army 
would  have  to  be  drained  of  officers,  and  thereby 
rendered  inefficient,  or  the  volunteers  would  be 
committed,  as  they  have  been  with  such  direful 
results  in  the  past,  to  the  ignorance  of  officers 
who  would  be  themselves  but  novices  in  the 
game  of  war.  In  either  case  the  defensive  abil- 
ity of  the  country  would  be  very  weak,  for  the 
finest  corps  of  trained  officers  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  produce  trained  soldiers  in  the  time 
that  a  strong  enemy  would  allow  them.  It  is 
not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  if  all  the  offi- 
cers in  the  present  regular  establishment  were 
withdrawn  from  it  and  assigned  to  the  task  of 
training  one  million  volunteers,  those  troops 
would  be  incapable  of  efficient  service  in  sixty 
days.  And  suppose  this  were  done?  What 
would  become  of  the  first  line  of  defense? 

So  essential  to  the  security  of  the  country  is 
the  regular  army  that  it  must,  in  event  of  war, 
be  maintained  in  the  highest  possible  state  of 
efficiency.  Its  organization  simply  must  not 
be  destroyed  by  drafting  large  numbers  of  offi- 
cers from  it.  They  must  remain  with  our  only 
trained  troops  and  bear  the  disproportionate 
burden  that  would  fall  upon  them.     And  this 

88 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

conclusion  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of 
another  serious  question. 

Losses  in  the  early  stages  of  a  war  are  al- 
ways excessive  for  many  reasons.  The  best 
trained  troops  have  much  to  learn  from  experi- 
ence of  actual  service  in  war.  The  excessive 
losses  which  would  result  from  the  first  con- 
flicts, even  assuming  that  our  arms  were  suc- 
cessful, would  not  be  distributed  proportion- 
ately among  the  officers  and  men  of  the  first 
line  and  the  various  reserves,  as  they  are  in 
Europe  where  armies  are  at  once  expanded 
under  the  national  army  system.  Our  reserve 
forces,  comprised  only  of  untrained  volunteers 
and  partially  trained  militia,  would  not  be  able 
to  engage  in  the  first  conflicts.  Thus,  the  losses 
that  would  fall  upon  us  would  be  restricted  al- 
most entirely  to  our  few  trained  troops,  and  in 
a  twinkling  we  would  lose  a  large  part  of  the 
only  experienced  officers  in  the  country.  This 
is  but  one  of  the  many  weaknesses  of  a  system 
that  contemplates  the  utilization  of  a  small 
trained  army  for  the  first  line  of  defense ;  a  sys- 
tem which  not  only  sacrifices  the  trained  sol- 
diery of  the  country,  but  robs  the  untrained  vol- 
unteers of  the  skilled  leadership  of  officers 
trained  in  time  of  peace. 

89 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

The  principles  of  economy  must  be  applied  to 
the  problem  of  national  defense  just  as  they 
are  applied  to  industrial  enterprises.  No  cap- 
tain of  industry  would  assume  to  operate  a  vast 
industrial  enterprise  on  so  wasteful  a  basis, 
wasteful  both  in  men  and  material,  as  the  one 
at  the  foundation  of  our  system  of  national  de- 
fense. A  national  army  alone  can  afford  the 
requisite  expansive  ability  for  our  first  line  or 
highly  trained  troops — it  alone  will  conserve 
to  the  nation  the  military  skill  and  the  experi- 
ence which  is  acquired  by  it  in  time  of  peace. 

Compulsory  universal  military  service^  with 
liberal  exemptions  for  educational  purposes  at 
schools  and  colleges  where  military  training  is 
given,  and  in  the  case  of  dependencies  and  phys- 
ical unfitness,  is  the  only  honest,  fair,  and  eco- 
nomical system,  of  defense,  and  withal  it  is  the 
only  real  democratic  system.  It  is  coming,  and 
coming  soon.  Demos  cries  aloud  for  it,  here, 
in  the  only  country  of  importance  in  the  world 
where  it  has  not  been  adopted.  The  men  who 
are  now  being  sacrificed  in  the  militia  are  going 
to  see  that  it  does  come.  Meantime  they  are 
going  to  do  their  duty  to  the  best  of  their  ability, 
and  it  will  be  done  by  them  as  well  as  possible 

90 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

for  them  to  do  it  under  the  circumstances — and 
not  one  whit  better. 

The  mistake  is  very  commonly  made  that  a 
national  army  based  on  manhood  service  is  an 
autocratic  institution.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
conception  that  with  manhood  suffrage  goes 
hand  in  hand  the  obligation  of  manhood  service, 
is,  we  have  seen,  a  purely  democratic  one.  A 
standing  army,  in  the  old  sense,  is  an  instru- 
ment of  autocratic  origin,  and  is  far  more  dan- 
gerous to  the  liberties  of  a  people,  through  its 
misuse  by  a  ruler  or  governing  class,  than  is  a 
national  army  composed  of  the  youthful  citizens 
of  the  country  who  owe  their  allegiance  to  the 
body  politic  rather  than  to  its  chief  executive 
and  pay-master. 

Our  press  and  public  men  have  a  rare  oppor- 
tunity to  render  their  country  a  service.  A  full 
and  fair  presentation  of  the  facts  of  the  present 
system  will  disclose  its  complete  inadequacy. 
Nor  will  the  thinking  militiaman  misconstrue 
such  a  policy  as  an  attack  upon  them,  for  they 
know  full  well  the  essential  limitations  of  the 
National  Guard — they  have  had  these  limita- 
tions demonstrated  to  them  in  a  very  forceful 
way. 

The  proposed  continental  army  is  but  a  make- 
91 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

shift — impracticable  and  visionary.  The  mili- 
tia was  right  in  opposing  it,  but  the  militia  sys- 
tem is  equally  inadequate,  for  it  is  based  upon 
population.  In  other  words,  the  sections  of 
the  country  where  population  is  most  dense 
will  have  the  most  militia.  And  yet  those  sec- 
tions most  exposed  to  land-attack  are  thinnest 
in  population,  and,  therefore,  the  most  vulner- 
able under  the  present  system,  when  they  should 
be  the  most  strongly  defended. 

At  one  time  it  was  thought  to  be  prudent  to 
maintain  state  troops  to  safeguard  State  rights 
against  centralized  power.  The  very  act  of 
turning  over  the  State  troops  to  the  Federal 
Grovernment  for  training  and  exclusive  use  is 
an  admission  by  the  people  that  the  old  system 
is  obsolete  and  unnecessary.  If,  therefore,  the 
Federal  Government  is  to  control  our  forces  ab- 
solutely and  is  responsible  for  the  national  de- 
fense, it  should  have  full  authority  to  measure 
up  to  its  responsibilities.  It  can  never  do  that 
under  the  present  hybrid  system  of  employing 
State  troops  that  are  not  really  State  troops, 
and  Federal  troops  that  are  national  in  name 
only. 

The  tenacity  with  which  the  American  people 
now  cling  to  the  mercenary  system,  even  sub- 

92 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

sidizing  their  ancient,  popular  militia  institu- 
tion, because  neither  citizens  nor  foreigners  in 
sufficient  numbers  will  longer  serve  the  country 
without  pay,  is  evidence  of  the  dire  need  of  im- 
mediate reform.  Let  us  trust  that  for  the  pres- 
ent, and  until  the  American  people  abandon 
their  fatuous  course — their  valorous  ignorance 
— that  a  danger  as  great  as  that  which  has  of 
late  threatened  to  destroy  the  democracies  of 
Europe,  will  not  more  successfully  imperil  the 
destiny  of  America.  The  national  mind  should 
be  prepared  to  accept  that  bitter  truth  which 
Britain  has  been  forced  to  acknowledge.  A 
belief  in  and  the  recognition  of  actual  danger 
must  come  before  the  old  prejudices  will  be 
abandoned,  for  in  spite  of  the  oft-expressed 
wisdom  of  Washington,  w^ho,  from  his  experi- 
ence, was  able  to  plead  in  good  faith  for  a  better 
defense  than  untrained  militia  affords,  and  who 
endeavored  in  vain  to  convince  his  countrymen 
that  their  fears  of  trained  soldiery  were  ill- 
founded,  in  spite  of  the  fervent  pleas  of  Hamil- 
ton, and  Jay,  and  Adams,  and  Clay,  the  Ameri- 
can people  have  clung  tenaciously  to  their  old, 
inherited  British  prejudices,  which  the  British 
themselves  have  been  compelled  to  cast  aside  at 
last — ^but  not  until  a  bitter  penance  had  been 

93 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

paid  by  them  for  their  blind  adherence  to  an 
obsolete  principle. 

Is  it  too  mnch  to  say  that  the  American  peo- 
ple, unless  they  profit  by  the  experiences  of  all 
other  nations — all — now  that  Great  Britain  has 
adopted  compulsory  military  service — wiU  pay 
the  price  that  their  mireasoning  prejudices 
threaten  to  exact  ? 

Washington,  the  creator  of  our  liberties,  the 
founder  of  our  State,  the  father  of  our  nation, 
warned  his  people  in  solemn  words  against 
their  blind  reliance  upon  the  voluntary  system 
of  defense.     Said  he: 

*' Regular  troops  alone  are  equal  to  the  ex- 
igencies of  modern  war  as  well  for  defense  as 
offense,  and  when  a  substitute  is  attempted  it 
must  prove  illusory  and  ruinous. 

* '  No  militia  will  ever  acquire  the  habits  neces- 
sary to  resist  a  regular  force.  The  firmness 
for  the  real  business  of  fighting  is  only  to  be 
attained  by  a  constant  course  of  discipline  and 
service. 

'  *  I  have  never  yet  been  a  witness  to  a  single 
instance  that  can  justify  a  different  opinion, 
and  it  is  most  earnestly  to  be  wished  that  the 
liberties  of  America  may  no  longer  be  trusted, 

.94 


THE  AMERICAN  MILITARY  SYSTEM 

in  a  material  degree,  to  so  precarious  a  de- 
fense. ' ' 

The  warning  of  Washington  is  clearly  before 
his  country.  It  is  in  the  power  of  the  American 
people  to  obey  his  counsel.  Let  the  citizens  of 
America,  and  not  its  foreign  population,  pro- 
vide the  national  defense.  Let  them  bring  into 
being  that  national  army  based  on  compulsory 
service  which  the  constitution  provides  for.  Let 
them  train  this  army  under  the  democratic  Eu- 
ropean system  by  calling  the  junior  citizens  to 
the  colors  in  time  of  peace,  thus  providing  the 
regular  troops  which  Washington  pleaded  for, 
without  in  any  way  abolishing  the  constitutional 
militia  system.  Washington  did  not  demand  a 
mercenary  army — only  a  trained  army.  Nor 
did  he  condemn  a  citizen  army,  but  only  an  un- 
trained one. 

Let  us  harken  to  the  words  of  the  great  Pa- 
triot Father  as  they  come  to  us  across  the  gulf 
of  time  that  separates  the  first  revolution  of 
American  thought  from  that  through  which  the 
nation  soon  must  pass. 


95 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

THE  reader  has  already  been  introduced  to 
some  of  the  arguments  for  and  against 
universal  compulsory  military  service.  It  is 
well,  however,  in  concluding  this  study  to  ex- 
amine the  nature,  working  and  effects  of  this 
enlightened  system. 

A  citizen  army  is  commonly  understood  to 
be  what  in  America  is  called  militia,  a  military 
force  composed  of  citizens  who  in  theory  are 
under  compulsion  to  serve,  or  who  in  practice 
are  allowed  by  the  State  to  devote  part  of  the 
leisure  their  occupations  afford  them  to  mili- 
tary exercises,  so  as  to  be  able  when  their  coun- 
try calls  to  take  the  field  as  soldiers.  When 
society  was  primitive  and  all  men  were  soldiers 
in  the  sense  that  their  muscles  were  hard  and 
weapons  were  familiar  to  them  from  early 
youth,  the  militia  system  was  adequate.  Not 
the  least  reason  for  its  effectiveness  was  the 

96 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

fact  that  no  other  more  efficient  system  existed. 
But  when  war  became  a  scientific  profession 
citizen  soldiers,  or  warriors  who  devoted  their 
leisure  only  to  military  training,  found  them- 
selves utterly  unable  to  cope  with  regularly 
maintained  troops. 

**It  is  well  known,''  says  Seeley,  ^*how  empty 
is  the  commonplace  of  rhetoric  which  represents 
their  untutored  patriotism  as  more  than  a  match 
for  trained  skill.  Scharnhorst,  the  originator 
of  the  modern  system,  was  under  no  such  de- 
lusion. He  well  knew  that  a  citizen  army  com- 
posed of  young  peasants  and  young  tradesmen 
or  mechanics,  would  not  prove  a  better  match 
for  the  trained  conscripts  of  Napoleon  than 
were  the  old  Prussian  soldiers,  unless  that  army 
was  as  thoroughly  trained  as  a  professional 
army." 

But  how  is  it  possible  for  the  whole  manhood 
of  a  nation  to  be  made  into  professional  sol- 
diers? How  is  it  possible  to  give  to  every  indi- 
vidual, not  merely  some  little  practice  in  han- 
dling arms,  but  a  complete  physical  and  mili- 
tary training  as  well?  How  is  it  possible  to 
impart  discipline  to  an  entire  race  and  make 
every  individual  think,  and  feel,  and  act  as  a 
part  of  the  great  corporate  whole.     This  was 

97 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

the  problem  presented  to  Scharnhorst,  and  it 
was  one  which  had  never,  perhaps,  in  any  coun- 
try been  seriously  considered  before  his  time. 

A  citizen-soldier,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word, 
was  no  great  burden  on  the  Government.  Called 
out  only  occasionally,  he  practically  supported 
himself,  and  imposed  no  overwhelming  expense 
upon  the  State  while  in  its  service.  But  pro- 
fessional soldiers  must  be  supported,  for  they 
abandon  all  other  pursuits  for  the  military  vo- 
cation. The  modem  citizen  or  national  army 
does  not,  therefore,  resemble  a  militia,  but  a 
standing  army,  in  the  demand  it  makes  upon  the 
yearly  budget  of  the  State.  Nevertheless,  there 
is  a  great  difference  between  a  national  army 
and  that  of  America  in  respect  to  its  cost.  In 
the  latter  army  service  is  engaged  under  a  vol- 
untary contract ;  rate  of  pay  is  based  on  an  en- 
tirely different  principle  from  that  which  dic- 
tates the  amount  of  compensation  for  a  na- 
tional conscript.  In  the  citizen-army  the  pay  of 
soldiers  is  merely  the  amount  necessary  for 
their  support,  and  may  be  lowered  according  to 
the  circumstance  of  the  social  and  economic 
conditions  prevailing  in  the  State,  whereas  the 
pay  of  voluntary  soldiers  is  the  amount  that  will 

98 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

induce  the  necessary  number  of  men  to  aban- 
don civil  vocations. 

But  what  becomes  of  industry  and  agricul- 
ture with  all  men  in  the  military  service? 

The  training  necessary  to  form  a  professional 
soldier  does  not  require  him  to  be  withdrawn 
from  civil  pursuits  forever,  but  only  for  a  given 
time,  and  this  time  need  not  be  very  long  if  the 
training  is  intensive.  It,  comprises  but  a  brief 
period  of  a  man's  lifetime.  The  essential  thing 
is  that  it  be  given  continuously  until  the  citizen 
becomes  a  soldier  in  habit  of  thought  and  dis- 
ciplined action  for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  and 
is  thus  prepared  to  reassume  the  duties  of  a 
skilled  professional  at  his  country's  call.  Only 
a  brief  annual  rehearsal  is  necessary  to  pre- 
serve this  skill  when  once  acquired.  This  being 
so,  the  young  man  who  has  not  yet  acquired 
the  full  responsibilities  of  life  is  the  one  taken 
for  a  continuous  period  of  training,  passing  on 
to  the  reserve  when  his  military  habits  are 
formed.  In  the  reserve  he  is  subject  only  to  a 
brief  annual  training  in  peace  time,  but  he  is 
liable  to  be  called  to  the  colors  instantly  to 
swell  the  active  ranks  in  an  emergency.  And 
then  there  is  the  second  reserve,  or  Landwehr, 
and  the  third  reserve,  or  Landsturm,  to  which 

99 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

the  soldiers  are  attached  as  they  progress  in 
age,  subject  to  call  successively  as  the  exigen- 
cies may  require.  Under  such  a  system  all  men 
must  be  at  one  time  the  equivalent  in  eflficiency 
of  the  professional  soldier,  and  when  released 
from  active  service  with  the  colors  they  re- 
main in  the  army  until  past  the  serviceable  age, 
retaining  a  degree  of  proficiency  varying  in- 
versely as  their  length  of  service.  Thus,  the 
whole  manhood  of  the  State  is  kept  in  the  mili- 
tary service  and  rendered  instantly  available 
as  soldiers  with  the  minimum  of  expense  and  at 
the  least  possible  inconvenience  to  and  inter- 
ference with  the  private  vocations  of  the  citi- 
zens. 

And  here  we  should  remark  that  this  system 
obviates  the  necessity  of  depending  upon  vol- 
untary service.  Armies  are  too  large  to-day 
for  a  State  to  have  to  depend  upon  voluntary 
enlistment.  There  are  no  longer  multitudes  of 
men,  as  formerly,  to  whom  military  service  is  a 
last  resort  for  subsistence ;  public  order,  which 
everywhere  reigns,  has  greatly  diminished  this 
class,  and  few  men  worth  having  enter  a  volun- 
teer army  nowadays  with  the  thought  of  pecu- 
niary gain  foremost  in  their  minds.  The  devel- 
opment of  industry  has  provided  employment 

100 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

for  all  who  can  and,  will  work;  education  lias 
reduced  the  number  of  social  skulkers ;  and  vol- 
unteers in  time  of  peace  are  only  to  be  had  to- 
day by  persuasive  and  disgusting  advertising 
propaganda,  which  is  a  reflection  on  the  nation 
that  tolerates  it,  or  by  reason  of  some  peculiar 
taste  for  a  military  life  among  those  who  volun- 
teer. Obligatory  service  is,  therefore,  the  only 
effective  means  of  securing  the  defense  of  the 
State,  and  this  being  so,  the  tax  of  blood  has 
come  to  be  regarded  in  all  enlightened  countries 
but  one,  as  a  burden  to  be  equally  distributed 
among  all  the  citizens. 

The  spirit  of  armies  has  been  greatly  modi- 
fied by  the  general  introduction  of  the  conscrip- 
tive  system  in  Europe,  and  notwithstanding  the 
predictions  of  those  who  first  opposed  it  in  al- 
most every  country,  that  spirit  has  been  en- 
nobled. It  is  impossible  to  compare  an  army 
composed  of  young  men  nurtured  in  a  spirit  of 
order  and  obedience  with  one  in  which  a  mi- 
nority only  is  animated  by  the  love  of  country 
and  the  majority  is  drawn  from  the  lower  strata 
of  life.  How  much  better  is  the  public  secured, 
and  how  much  more  elevated  is  the  spirit  of 
the  army  bound  to  be,  when  the  national  de- 
fense is  confided  to  those  who  regard  military 

101 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

service  as  a  high  and  important  civic  duty. 
**The  young  man  who  is  designated  by  lot, 
peaceable  in  his  habits,  may  leave  his  family 
with  grief ;  but  the  warlike  spirit,  so  natural  to 
man,  soon  animates  him;  he  then  cherishes 
noble  thoughts ;  he  becomes  greater  in  his  own 
eyes;  he  is  faithful,  devoted,  and  finds  in  the 
good  opinion  of  his  officers  and  of  his  compan- 
ions the  reward  of  his  sacrifice,  his  labors,  and 
his  dangers."  * 

Plausible  efforts  have  always  been  made  by 
American  demagogues  and  the  popular  idols  of 
the  people  to  maintain  the  voluntary  system  in 
the  affections  of  their  constituents,  adducing 
much  sentimental  twaddle  in  evidence  of  its 
highly  democratic  nature  and  its  peculiar  fit- 
ness for  a  free  people.  But  the  real  advantages 
of  a  system  which  tends  to  fill  the  ranks  with 
fighting  men  only,  and  entrusts  a  nation  ^s  vital 
interests  to  hands  which  may  or  may  not  be 
worthy,  according  to  the  social  unrest  and  eco- 
nomic pressure  of  society,  are  inconsiderable  in 
comparison  with  the  benefits  of  national  con- 
scription. By  this  assertion  is  meant  no  reflec- 
tion upon  the  magnificent  volunteer  regular 

*  Marmont. 

102 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

troops  that  have  so  far  sufficed  to  police  our 
borders  and  dominions. 

The  inherent  right  which  every  society  pos- 
sesses to  personal  service  from  its  members  is 
undoubted.  It  is  recognized  in  all  enlightened 
political  constitutions,  including  that  of  the 
United  States.  Since  an  army  is  instituted  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  highest  welfare  of  the 
State,  the  obligation  to  military  service  is  the 
most  just  and  the  most  important  of  all  those 
which  are  the  consequences  of  social  compact. 

The  system  of  obligatory  service  being  the 
only  one  compatible  with  the  present  state  of 
civilization,  let  us  now  examine  into  the  con- 
siderations by  which  its  practical  working 
should  be  regulated  for  the  greatest  benefit  both 
of  the  American  people  and  the  American  State. 

The  age  at  which  young  men  are  to  be  called 
upon  to  serve  should  be  fixed  at  that  period 
when  they  may  be  supposed  to  be  possessed  of 
abundant  physical  strength  to  sustain  the  fa- 
tigues of  training — and  possible  war.  This  age 
is  almost  universally  fixed  at  twenty  or  there- 
abouts; to  require  earlier  service  from  them 
would  halt  their  education,  impair  their  health, 
and  fill  the  hospitals  rather  than  the  ranks. 

The  next  point  to  be  determined  is  the  dura- 
103 


THE  CALL  OP  THE  REPUBLIC 

tion  of  service.  This  involves  two  conflicting 
interests :  that  of  the  army,  which  would  keep 
the  conscript  long  enough  to  make  him  the  equal 
of  the  best  trained  foreign  soldiers ;  that  of  the 
people,  who  would  abridge  as  much  as  possible 
the  term  of  service  with  the  colors.  The  ele- 
ments of  compromise  are  usually  contained  in 
the  following  considerations :  Firstly,  they  con- 
sult the  military  spirit  of  the  nation;  the  cus- 
tomary and  prescribed  training  which  the  aver- 
age young  man  undergoes  in  school,  their  phys- 
ical and  intellectual  aptitudes,  and  conse- 
quently their  fitness  for  and  congeniahty  to 
military  instruction.  Secondly,  deducting  the 
time  required  for  instruction  in  each  of  the 
three  arms,  infantry,  cavalry,  and  artillery,  the 
duration  of  service  is  then  fixed  in  such  manner 
that  the  State  may  have,  for  a  certain  length  of 
time,  the  benefit  of  their  proficiency,  reserving 
the  power  of  calling  upon  them,  as  well  quali- 
fied soldiers,  at  least  a  year  longer  than  the 
actual  period,  requisite  for  instruction.  In 
America  service  with  the  colors  for  a  term  of 
two  years  would  be,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
not  too  long.  Thirdly,  the  training  and  instruc- 
tion of  the  conscripts  should  also  have  a  view  to 
their  welfare  after  leaving  the  colors,  and  they 

104 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

should  return  to  civil  life  young  enough  to 
create  for  themselves  a  favorable  position  in 
competition  with  their  fellows,  and  secure  an 
independent  future. 

The  third  consideration  relates  to  the  number 
of  men  annually  to  be  called  to  the  colors  for 
training.  This  must  vary  with  the  condition 
of  the  country  and  the  requirements  of  the  mo- 
ment. The  policy  governing  the  annual  draft 
should  be  highly  elastic.  When  industrial  con- 
ditions impose  heavy  demands  upon  the  ranks 
of  labor,  the  military  ranks  should  respond,  but 
when  unemployment  is  extensive,  as  it  always  is 
in  periods  of  industrial  depression,  the  surplus 
workers  should  be  absorbed  by  the  army.  Such 
a  flexibility  of  the  drafting  system  would  solve 
many  social  problems  and  minimize  hindrance 
to  the  solution  of  the  economic  problems  of  the 
country.  No  violently  sudden  and  demoraliz- 
ing fluctuations  would  probably  occur.  Assume 
that  the  size  of  the  national  army  is  fixed  at 
500,000  men,  and  service  with  the  colors  at  two 
years.  The  annual  draft  would  be  only  about 
200,000,  approximately,  a  number  little  larger 
than  that  now  proposed  to  be  drawn  from  the 
ranks  of  industry  for  the  regular  army.  Volun- 
tary enlistment  would  supply  the  remaining 

105 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

50,000  men.  No  one  will  seriously  argue  that 
the  economic  conditions  of  the  country  would  be 
disturbed  by  so  small  a  draft. 

The  fourth  question  refers  to  the  mode  of 
raising  the  annual  contingent  or  yearly  class  of 
recruits.  When  the  number  has  been  deter- 
mined, it  should  be  apportioned  among  the 
States  according  to  the  population  of  the  last 
census,  and  by  the  States  among  the  counties 
and  towns  on  a  similar  basis.  The  most  demo- 
cratic way  of  determining  the  selection  of  the 
individual  recruits  is  by  lot,  for  official  choice 
is  too  much  subject  to  local  abuses. 

Eeasonable  exemption,  not  by  class,  or  from 
social  considerations,  however,  is  essential  to 
any  practical  and  well-ordered  system  of  con- 
scription. Exemptions  are  of  two  kinds,  the 
first  in  the  interest  of  the  State,  the  second  in 
the  interest  of  the  individual  citizens  and  their 
families.  The  State  must  decline  young  men 
who  have  not  the  size,  strength,  or  ability  to 
bear  arms,  or  who  are  morally  unfit  for  the  mili- 
tary service.  The  families  are  entitled  to  re- 
tain among  them  such  men  as  are  necessary  for 
the  support  of  aged  and  infirm  parents,  and  also 
those  whose  brothers  are  already  in  the  army, 
or  have  been  killed  or  mutilated  in  combat.    A 

106 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

family  which  has  furnished  a  soldier  who  has 
been  killed  in  the  service  of  his  country,  or 
which  has  one  of  its  members  in  training,  has 
manifestly  made  a  liberal  contribution  to  the 
common  welfare.  Young  men  who  desire  to 
enter  professions  which  are  essential  to  society 
and  confer  a  public  benefit  upon  the  State,  such 
as  the  priesthood,  public  instruction,  etc., 
should  be  given  a  dispensation  which  differs 
from  exemption  in  as  much  as  the  latter  is  final 
and  the  former  conditional,  expiring  with  the 
reason  for  which  it  was  given.  All  young  men 
who  enter  schools  where  military  training  and 
instruction  is  given  should  receive  dispensa- 
tion and  be  enrolled  under  proper  conditions  as 
officers  of  the  second  reserve  upon  the  comple- 
tion of  their  educational  course. 

Voluntary  enlistment  on  the  part  of  those 
exempted  with  pay  should  be  allowed,  and  also 
substitution,  so  controlled  as  to  prevent  the  pos- 
sibility of  abuses  creeping  in.  Every  man  should 
have  the  right  to  serve  one  year  without  re- 
ward, on  condition  of  equipping  and  maintain- 
ing himself  at  his  own  charge  during  his  ser- 
vice, and  joining  the  second  reserve  upon  his 
discharge.  The  expense  thus  saved  would  be 
sufficient  to  provide  for  the  voluntary  enlist- 

107 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


ment  pay  of  others.  The  voluntary  class,  com- 
posed of  seasoned  and  tested  professional  sol- 
diers, would  furnish  the  experienced  non-com- 
missioned officers  requisite  for  the  discipline  of 
the  conscripts. 

After  two  years  with  the  colors  the  conscripts 
should  pass  into  the  reserve  and  for  five  years 
remain  liable  to  be  recalled  to  the  colors,  and 
receive  practical  training  in  their  old  regiments 
for  a  month  each  year. 

The  service  of  the  reservist  would  extend  to 
his  twenty-seventh  year.  The  average  citizen 
has  not  acquired  the  full  responsibilities  of  life 
before  that  age. 

At  twenty-seven  the  soldier  should  pass  on  to 
the  second  reserve  for  a  service  of  seven  years 
with  only  occasional  training,  and  at  thirty-four 
into  the  third  reserve,  subject  to  no  training, 
and  at  forty-five  be  finally  discharged  from 
the  army. 

A  standing  army  of  500,000  men  would  be  in- 
stantly increased  to  about  1,500,000  well-trained 
men,  all  under  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  by 
calling  the  first  reserve  to  the  colors,  and  by 
summoning  the  second  reserve,  to  about  2,800,- 
000,  while  the  entire  national  army  would  total 
not  less  than  4,000,000  men,  all  of  whom  had 

108 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

served  with  the  colors  and  become  trained  sol- 
diers. Statisticians  claim  that  there  are  15,- 
000,000  or  more  men  in  the  United  States  of 
military  age,  all  of  whom  are  liable  for  military 
service  under  the  Constitution.  The  national 
army  which  has  been  outlined  would,  in  time 
of  peace,  require  the  service  of  but  one  man  in 
every  thirty,  and  in  time  of  war  with  the  whole 
army  in  service,  but  one  man  in  every  four,  a 
proportion  considerably  smaller  than  that 
which  the  army  of  the  United  Kingdom  bears 
to  its  male  population  at  the  present  time. 

We  have  considered  the  military  advantages 
of  a  national  army.  Let  us  now  review  the 
social  advantages  to  the  State  of  such  an  army. 

The  possession  of  a  powerful  and  well-disci- 
plined army  is  of  great  social  benefit  to  a  State, 
for  it  provides  a  popular  school,  not  only  for 
training  soldiers  but  for  cultivating  in  the  body 
politic  manly  virtues  in  an  age  when  business 
and  pleasure  often  cause  higher  ideals  to  be 
forgotten.  The  system  of  universal  service 
never  proves  repugnant  to  normal  men.  It  is 
the  normal  man  and  not  the  ^^ Quakers''  of  life 
that  social  institutions  must  be  adapted  to.  The 
system  we  have  outlined  provides  an  outlet  for 

109 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

the  abnormal  citizen  with  just  grounds  for  ex- 
oneration from  service. 

It  also  provides  a  great  training  school  for 
the  industrial  apprentices  of  the  nation.  True, 
it  does  not  train  them  in  the  work  of  industry, 
but  it  does  prepare  their  minds  and  their  bodies 
for  a  better  competition  in  the  strife  of  life.  It 
is  a  distinct  moralizer  of  men  and,  therefore, 
confers  upon  them  a  lasting  benefit. 

John  Stuart  Mill  said  that  until  the  indus- 
trial workers  performed  their  functions  in  the 
same  orderly  way  in  which  soldiers  were  ac- 
customed to  labor,  industry  would  never  be 
moralized.  Universal  military  service  disci- 
plines the  future  industrial  workers  of  a  nation 
and  imparts  to  them  habits  of  obedience, 
promptitude,  and  thoroughness,  thus  render- 
ing them  more  competent,  responsible,  and 
faithful  in  the  discharge  of  life's  duties.  The 
permanent  acquisition  of  such  virtues  by  train- 
ing in  the  formative  period  of  manhood  more 
than  counterbalances  the  loss  of  time  from 
labor  incurred  while  serving  with  the  colors, 
nor  is  any  individual  placed  at  a  greater  dis- 
advantage than  his  competitor  since  the  civil 
careers  of  all  are  postponed  alike.  Where  the 
disadvantages  of  all  men  in  society  are  equal, 

110 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

there  is  really  no  relative  advantage  gained  by 
some  over  others  among  them. 

If  one  will  but  visit  the  section  of  a  great 
city  where  the  working  classes  are  wont  to  find 
their  recreation  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  and 
examine  carefully  the  crowds  of  young  men  to 
be  seen  there,  loitering  about,  and  then  visit  an 
army  post  and  examine  men  of  the  same  class 
but  recently  become  soldiers,  many  social  ad- 
vantages of  military  training  will  occur  to  his 
mind.  His  conclusions  will  appear  to  be  irre- 
sistible. The  erect  bodies,  the  alert  step,  the 
bright  eyes,  the  clear  skin,  and  the  full  mus- 
cular development  of  the  trained  soldier  may 
with  infinite  benefit  to  the  nation  be  given  to 
the  ill-nourished  and  haggard-featured  labor- 
ing classes  of  America  in  their  youth  by  uni- 
versal compulsory  military  service,  along  with 
the  better  habits  of  mind  and  body  which  have 
been  enumerated.  Physical,  like  mental  devel- 
opment remains  with  men  throughout  their 
lives — both  are  assets  to  the  men  of  the  strug- 
gling lower  classes,  which  they  themselves  can- 
not acquire  unaided.  For  them  military  ser- 
vice would  afford  the  opportunities  which 
healthy  living  conditions  and  college  athletics 
afford  the  sons  of  the  more  fortunate. 

Ill 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

But  of  all  the  social  benefits  to  be  had  from 
universal  military  service  the  fostering  of  the 
spirit  of  democracy  is,  perhaps,  the  most  valued. 
The  writer  once  witnessed  the  meeting  of  a 
French  soldier-duke  in  America  with  a  veteran 
chasseur  employed  as  a  stable  groom.  As  the 
old  soldier  led  out  a  mount  for  the  duke,  who 
was  his  master's  guest,  the  latter  addressed 
him  in  the  democratic  manner  common  to 
French  superior  officers.  At  once  the  servant's 
attitude  became  that  of  respectful  appreciation 
and  in  the  rapid  conversation  which  ensued  it 
was  not  difficult  to  detect  the  influence  of  a 
common  service  in  the  army  of  the  great  Re- 
public. There  was  no  easy  familiarity,  no  sug- 
gestion of  social  equality,  but  the  mental  atti- 
tude of  these  two  men — nobleman  and  peasant 
— was  that  of  two  citizens  with  equal  respect, 
one  for  the  other.  This  is  but  one  instance, 
striking  as  it  was,  of  many  similar  ones  that 
compel  those  who  have  studied  the  effects  of 
universal  service  to  believe  that  the  national 
army  is  an  effective  antidote  to  the  undemo- 
cratic spirit  engendered  by  social  castes,  which 
inevitably  arise  in  unmilit^ry  as  well  as  mili- 
tary, free  as  well  as  autocratic,  democratic  as 
well  as  aristocratic  societies. 

112 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

Universal  military  service  not  only  creates 
among  those  subjected  to  it  a  camaraderie  while 
in  the  service,  but  it  creates  a  keener  sympathy 
between  the  conscripts  representing  various 
social  strata  which  is  enduring.  It  impresses 
the  sons  of  luxury  with  the  sterling  qualities  of 
those  with  whom  intimate  contact  in  civil  life 
might  never  have  been  had  without  it.  It 
teaches  the  humbler  citizens  to  understand  and 
appreciate  the  good  qualities  of  those  under 
whom  in  later  life  they  must  earn  their  bread. 
It  is  the  great  leveller  of  strong  men,  the  dif- 
fuser  of  common  sympathies,  inculcates  the 
sense  of  a  common  purpose  among  all  citizens, 
and  is  the  generator  of  a  sterner  love  of  coun- 
try than  the  flabby  patriotism  imbibed  from 
school  books  and  oratory.  Those  who  have 
served  their  flag  in  the  ranks  are  more  apt  to 
cherish  a  higher  respect  for  that  flag  and  all 
that  it  means,  because  of  the  sacrifice  they  have 
made  for  it,  than  those  for  whom  it  is  a  mere 
sentiment,  and  the  ideals  which  are  impressed 
upon  them  are  transmitted  upon  their  retire- 
ment to  the  civil  walks  of  life  to  the  people  at 
large,  both  young  and  old. 

The  recent  mobilization  of  the  militia  has 
demonstrated  the  injustice  of  the  voluntary  sys- 

113 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

tern  in  this  country.  Many  young  men  sacrificed 
their  business  and  professional  careers  in  order 
to  respond  to  the  call  of  the  State.  The  State 
can  never  reimburse  many  of  them  for  their 
losses.  Some  of  them  assumed  too  great  a  bur- 
den. The  excessive  patriotism  of  these  men 
was  but  exploited  for  the  benefit  of  their  fel- 
low citizens  who  remained  at  home.  Why,  let 
us  enquire,  should  Smith  be  allowed  to  sacri- 
fice himself  for  his  Country?  Does  the  Coun- 
try demand  that  any  citizen  should  sacrifice 
himself!  And  why  should  Smith,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  militia,  be  called  upon  to 
serve  while  Jones,  his  partner,  or  his  friend, 
or  his  fellow  citizen,  remains  at  home  and  grows 
rich?  Why  should  this  woman's  son  be  called 
to  die  in  the  trenches,  and  that  woman's  son  be 
allowed  to  avoid  all  danger  at  his  own  discre- 
tion? 

These  questions  may  at  first  seem  to  involve 
a  personal  issue  between  Smith  and  Jones,  and 
their  mothers.  But  they  go  deeper  than  that. 
They  involve  the  most  fundamental  principles 
of  the  social  democracy  and  the  economic  com- 
petence of  the  State. 

No  citizen  should  be  allowed  to  make  the  de- 
cision as  to  whether  or  not  he  should  render 

114 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

that  service  in  arms  whidi  his  own  and  the  se- 
curity of  his  fellow  citizens  may  or  may  not  re- 
quire. Nor  should  he  be  burdened  with  the  ne- 
cessity of  making  that  decision. 

Every  citizen  is  under  a  peculiar  social  and 
economic  obligation  to  his  State,  as  well  as 
under  a  military  obligation.  The  last  may  bet- 
ter be  served,  in  many  cases,  by  not  taking  up 
arms  than  by  so  doing,  and  the  Government  is 
the  proper  authority  to  determine  who  should 
and  who  should  not  serve  in  the  ranks. 

Many  men  are  so  constituted  that  patriotic 
fervor  clouds  their  judgment.  Enthusiasm  for 
service  leads  others  to  ignore  their  social  obli- 
gations. And  no  man  who  is  really  fit  to  serve 
his  country  in  the  ranks  would  willingly  remain 
at  his  lathe,  or  other  industrial  task,  in  prefer- 
ence to  shouldering  a  musket.  It  is  no  more 
right  to  allow  a  man  to  abandon  his  dependent 
family  for  patriotic  or  other  reasons  than  it 
is  to  permit  an  indispensable  mechanic  to  crip- 
ple the  machinery  of  war  by  enlisting.  And  so 
the  State  itself  should  say  who  shall  and  who 
shall  not  serve  with  the  colors.  This  is  a  de- 
cision which  should  not  be  left  to  the  citizens 
themselves  as  individuals. 

When  a  mechanic,  and  one  upon  whom  the  ob- 
115 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

ligations  of  supporting  those  who  otherwise 
would  become  a  charge  upon  the  State,  are  de- 
nied the  privilege  of  serving  with  the  colors  by 
the  State  itself,  they  are  relieved  from  the 
odium  among  their  fellows  of  voluntarily  avoid- 
ing military  service.  This  is  only  just.  Those 
who  are  called  upon  to  serve  go  to  the  front 
with  a  lighter  heart  than  if  they  were  consumed 
with  the  doubts  that  beset  every  man  who  elects 
of  his  own  will  to  abandon  his  family  and  his 
civil  pursuits.  Those  who  remain  at  home  do  so 
with  the  satisfaction  of  a  full  knowledge  that 
they  could  not  serve  if  they  would,  until  called 
upon  by  the  State. 

These  principles  are  well  illustrated  by  the 
recent  experiences  of  Great  Britain  where  so- 
cial chaos  has  at  last  given  way  to  a  systematic, 
rational  system  under  which  the  man-power  of 
the  nation  has  been  organized  in  accordance 
with  the  existing  social,  economic,  and  strictly 
military  necessities.  Woe  to  the  State  that  does 
not  now  recognize  the  fact  that  war  must  be 
waged  at  home  as  well  as  on  the  firing  line — in 
the  marts  of  commerce  and  in  the  industrial 
centers  as  well  as  on  the  sea  and  in  the 
trenches — for  war  is  no  longer  a  conflict  be- 
tween armies  composed  of  a  surplus  of  men, 

116 


THE  IDEAL  MII/ITARY  INSTITUTION 

but  is  one  between  whole  peoples,  men,  women 
and  children,  of  all  classes  and  conditions. 

The  social  benefits  flowing  from  universal 
military  service  are  not  detected  in  the  case  of 
small  armies.  The  number  of  men  passing 
through  the  ranks  and  back  into  civil  life  is  too 
small  to  make  its  impress  upon  the  whole  peo- 
ple. The  ex-soldier  is  notable  in  many  ways, 
but  he  is  more  notable  than  potent  in  his  in- 
fluence upon  the  civil  community.  The  full  ad- 
vantage of  military  training  can  only  be  had  for 
the  race  through  the  medium  of  universal  com- 
pulsory service  in  a  national  army.  The  bene- 
fits, both  social  and  economic,  outweigh  the 
cost  in  money  of  such  an  army  many,  many 
times,  as  has  been  proved  in  every  country  in 
Europe. 

Compulsory  military  service  is  too  commonly 
misconceived  to  be  a  distinctly  social  institu- 
tion. It  is  that  and  more.  A  national  army  is 
bound  up  with  the  economic  welfare  of  the  na- 
tion supporting  it.  As  said  by  Mill,  it  is  the 
moralizer  of  industry.  No  higher  duty  rests 
upon  our  political  leaders  and  our  press  to-day 
than  that  of  educating  the  people  of  America  in 
the  democratic  principles  of  compulsory  ser- 
vice, and  up  to  the  need  of  a  national  army 

117 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

which  would  actually  release  the  workers  of  to- 
day from  an  unjust  burden.  It  should  be  shown 
them  that  not  they  themselves  but  the  rising 
generation  would  assume  the  physical  burden 
of  national  defense  under  a  proper  system  of 
military  service.  In  large  measure  it  would  be 
the  young  men,  or  the  apprentices  of  life,  who 
would  shoulder  the  muskets  of  defense.  Men 
with  the  full  responsibilities  of  life  would  not 
be  subjected  to  the  present  hardships  of  vol- 
untary military  service — a  service  in  which  pa- 
triotism and  individual  sacrifices  are  capitalized 
for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  people,  worthy  and 
unworthy  alike. 

The  American  people  will  sooner  or  later  be 
compelled  to  adopt  the  European  system; 
whether  before  or  after  an  ordeal  such  as  that 
through  which  the  British  Empire  is  passing, 
remains  to  be  seen.  May  they  harken,  before 
it  is  too  late,  to  the  words  of  Washington.  May 
they  respond  now  to  the  call  of  the  Republic — 
to  the  words  of  the  great  patriot  of  an  ancient 
democracy  whose  appeal  translates  itself  for 
us — 

Yet,  0  Americans,  yet  is  there  time!  And 
there  is  one  manner  in  which  you  may  retain 

118 


THE  IDEAL  MILITARY  INSTITUTION 

your  greatness,  or  dying,  fall  worthy  of  your 
past  at  Yorktown  and  New  Orleans.  .  .  . 

Go  yourselves,  every  man  of  you,  and  stand 
in  the  ranks;  and  either  a  victory  beyond  all 
victories  in  its  glory  awaits  you,  or  falling,  you 
shall  fall  greatly  and  worthy  of  your  past  I 


U9 


CHAPTER  IX 

FEAE   OF   MILITARISM   UNREASONABLE 

IN  concluding  our  consideration  of  the  insti- 
tution of  universal  compulsory  military 
service  it  is  well  to  call  attention  to  the  ill- 
founded  objection  to  extensive  military  training 
which  has  become  so  popular  among  the  masses. 

The  fear  of  ** militarism''  has  seized  upon 
the  national  mind  with  a  tenacity  bom  of  igno- 
rance. As  a  matter  of  fact  few  people  have 
analyzed  the  meaning  of  this  dread  militarism 
which  they  have  come  to  fear.  Vague  though 
the  thing  may  be,  it  seems  none  the  less  terrify- 
ing to  their  imagination,  for  whatever  else  it 
may  be,  all  agree  that  it  is  undemocratic  in  na- 
ture. 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress  in  Decem- 
ber, 1914,  Mr.  Wilson,  a  student  of  history  and 
politics,  and  as  such  an  acknowledged  authority, 
displayed  a  complete  misconception  of  the 
meaning  and  nature  of  militarism.    He  had  not, 

120 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

up  to  that  time,  devoted  much  thought  to  mat- 
ters military,  and  nowhere  in  his  politico-his- 
torical writings  had  he  attempted  to  survey 
military  institutions  in  their  bearing  upon  the 
national  and  imperial  developments  of  the  last 
two  centuries.  Indeed,  he  had  thought  to  set 
them  wholly  apart  from  the  political  life  of 
peoples.  To  him  the  military  potentiality  of 
a  people  was  but  a  thing  of  the  spirit  which, 
quickened  by  patriotic  impulse  could  be  sud- 
denly called  upon  to  yield  up  a  physical  power 
hitherto  non-existent.  That  which  might  be 
ultimately  called  upon  as  a  last  resort  to  save 
the  cherished  institutions  of  the  State,  was  to 
be  discouraged  and  suppressed  in  advance  of 
the  crucial  hour  of  its  need.  Small  wonder, 
then,  that  if  the  President  himself,  in  whose 
knowledge  of  the  past  the  people  reposed  their 
confidence,  could  stand  upon  the  threshold  of 
an  uncertain  future  and  profess  to  see  no  cause 
for  alarm,  that  the  people  were  reassured  in 
their  weakness  and  confirmed  in  their  distrust 
of  the  so-called  militarism  which  he  had  con- 
fused with  universal  preparedness  for  defense. 
Of  the  two  evils  of  militarism  and  military  un- 
preparedness,  they  preferred  the  latter,  believ- 

121 


THE  CALL  OP  THE  REPUBLIC 

ing  as  they  did  that  militarism  is  an  essential 
concomitant  of  developed  military  power. 

Militarism,  like  pacifism,  is  a  much  misunder- 
stood term.  Pacifism  has  come  to  embrace  all 
the  impotent  nostrums  of  those  who  desire  the 
end  of  armed  conflict,  as  well  as  rational  means 
for  the  reduction  of  the  evil  of  war. 

The  propaganda  of  true  pacifism,  consisting 
of  enlightenment  coupled  with  ethical  effort,  is 
undoubtedly  competent  to  eliminate  war  on 
trivial  grounds,  and  war  as  a  pastime  for  am- 
bitious rulers.  Propaganda  directed  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  universal  and  perpetual  peace, 
and  the  neglect  of  armament,  is  not  true 
pacifism,  however,  but  the  reverse,  for  it  tends 
to  delude  the  over-credulous  into  believing  that 
the  cosmic  process,  that  essential  friction  of  life 
out  of  which  all  progress  is  born,  may  be  set 
aside.  When  so  deceived  a  national  society  is 
but  reduced  to  a  more  impotent  state  in  the  cruel 
and  inexorable  struggle  for  survival — ^the  peo- 
ple become  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  Sunk 
for  a  while  in  bovine  content,  they  not  only  lose 
all  desire  to  contend,  but  all  ability  to  do  so 
however  imperative  a  great  effort  and  a  great 
sacrifice  on  their  part  may  become.  It  is  then 
that,  weak  in  flesh  and  fat  of  heart,  their  moral 

122 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

belligereney  dies.  It  was  Aristotle  wlio  pro- 
foundly remarked  that  a  race  wMcli  cannot  quit 
itself  like  a  man  in  war  can  achieve  no  great 
thing  in  peace.  It  was  also  Aristotle  who  bit- 
terly said,  *'The  slave  knows  no  leisure,  and 
the  State  which  sets  peace  above  war  is  in  the 
condition  of  the  slave. ' '  He  did  not  mean  that 
the  slave  is  perpetually  at  work,  or  that  war  is 
the  sole  duty  of  a  great  State,  as  thought  by 
Machiavelli,  and  Frederick  the  Great,  and 
Nietzsche,  but  he  did  believe  that  as  the  soul 
destined  to  slavery  is  incapable  even  in  leisure 
of  the  contemplations  of  the  soul  destined  to 
freedom,  so  to  the  nation  which  shirks  its  moral 
obligations  to  humanity  and  shrinks  from  the 
sacrifice,  the  greatness  that  belongs  to  a 
righteous  peace  can  never  come.  Courage 
Plato  defines  as  *Hhe  knowledge  of  the  things 
that  a  man  should  fear  and  that  he  should  not 
fear, ' '  and  in  a  state,  a  city,  or  an  empire  cour- 
age consists  in  the  unfaltering  pursuit  of  its 
being's  end  against  all  odds,  when  once  that  end 
is  manifest.  The  race  that  submits  to  be 
baulked  in  the  will  to  pursue  a  glorious  and  a 
righteous  destiny  but  brings  down  upon  itself 
its  own  doom.    May  a  race  not  cherish  right- 

123 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  EEPUBLIC 

eons  peace  and  yet  preserve  its  will  and  its 
power  to  wage  righteous  war? 

So  mucli  for  the  abuses  of  the  term  pacifism, 
and  for  the  fallacies  of  the  so-called  pacifism, 
compounded  as  it  is  of  illogical,  unnatural,  and 
unchristian  theories,  masquerading  in  a  spe- 
cious guise. 

The  popular  and  wide-spread  misconception 
of  the  meaning  of  militarism  is  the  logical  re- 
sult of  the  illogic  of  false  pacifism.  Military 
power  has  been  confused  with  the  abuses  of 
that  power  until  all  things  military  have  come 
to  be  embraced  in  the  popular  mind  within  the 
meaning  of  militarism.  How  thoughtless  and 
unreasoning  is  the  more  or  less  general  use  of 
the  term  militarism,  I  have  endeavored  to 
show  in  another  work.  {Empire  and  Armament, 
G.  P.  Putnam's,  1916.)  Suffice  it  to  say  here 
that  militarism  is  purely  a  mental  state,  and 
that  it  is  merely  evidenced  by  the  physical  con- 
dition which  is  erroneously  regarded  as  the 
thing  itself.  That  physical  condition  is  in  no 
sense  conclusive  of  the  mental  state  of  militar- 
ism. 

Militarism  is  that  political  state  of  mind 
which  confuses  government  with  power  main- 
tained by  force,  and  which,  in  order  to  attain 

124 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

tlie  maximum  power  for  government,  commits 
it  to  the  hands  of  a  warrior  caste,  which  rules 
for  the  aggrandizement  of  the  state  rather  than 
for  the  collective  interest  of  the  individuals 
comprising  it.  Militarism  is  in  a  sense,  Mach- 
iavellism,  and  only  exists  where  the  military 
caste  is  possessed  of  undue  prominence  and 
precedence  in  the  conduct  of  national  affairs. 
Thus  it  is  possible  to  have  militarism  with  a 
small  army,  as  in  certain  Latin- American  coun- 
tries of  the  opera-bouffe  type,  as  well  as  with 
a  large  army,  as  in  Germany  and  Austria.  But 
the  size  of  an  army,  and  the  proportion  of 
trained  citizens,  and  their  relative  degree  of 
military  efficiency,  have  no  essential  connection 
with  militarism.  A  larger  proportion  of  the 
French  people  than  of  the  German  people  was 
trained  with  the  colors  prior  to  1914.  This  was 
necessarily  so  in  as  much  as  the  armies  of  these 
two  nations  were  nearly  equal  in  size  though 
the  population  of  France  was  one  third  smaller 
than  that  of  Germany.  Military  service  was 
more  nearly  universal  in  Switzerland  than  in 
any  other  country.  Yet  militarism  did  not  ex- 
ist either  in  Switzerland  or  France. 

Nor  does  the  amount  of  national  expenditure 
on  the  military  institution  in  any  way  deter- 

125 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

mine  militarism.  The  individual  financial  mili- 
tary burden  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
in  1915  was  $4.60,  whereas  the  average  indi- 
vidual burden  of  the  German  people  for  the 
preceding  thirteen  years  was  but  $3.70  Based 
on  the  individual  financial  military  burden  alone 
in  the  year  1911,  for  instance,  the  Powers  would 
have  stood  in  the  scale  of  militarism  as  fol- 
lows : 

1.  Great  Britain, 

2.  France, 

3.  Germany, 

4.  United  States, 

5.  Russia. 

Do  we  not  know  that  with  respect  to  the 
actual  political  importance  of  the  military  caste 
in  these  countries,  the  rating  should  be  very  dif- 
ferent? 

Men  point  to  the  petty  tyrannies  of  military 
upstarts  over  civilians  in  Germany,  and  cry, 
** Behold  what  awaits  you  from  conscription!'' 
Such  arguments  have  precisely  the  same  value 
as  the  arguments  against  a  republican  form  of 
government  because  of  the  excesses  of  the 
French  Revolution.  We  might  as  well  con- 
demn all  free  institutions  because  of  Tammany 
Hall,  as  condenm  compulsory  service  because  of 

126 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

its  abuses  in  other  countries.  Why  not  also 
point  to  the  Pretorians  of  Rome,  or  to  the  Otto- 
man Janizaries?  Their  cases  are  just  as  rele- 
vant as  the  case  of  Germany.  Why  not  appeal 
to  them  as  long  as  we  have  ignored  the  present 
facts  of  Switzerland,  and  France,  and  the  neces- 
sities of  Great  Britain?  But  when  we  recall 
the  Pretorians  are  we  also  to  forget  the  Athens 
of  Plato  and  Sophocles — that  glorious  military 
state  in  which  art  and  culture  and  citizen- 
soldiers  flourished  side  by  side? 

If  it  be  argued  that  militarism,  embodied  in 
the  German  military  institutions,  brought  upon 
the  world  the  dreadful  calamity  of  the  war  of 
1914, 1  need  but  reply  that  universal  compulsory 
military  service  alone  enabled  the  mother  state 
to  survive  the  storm  of  that  war,  and  that  the 
vast  conscript  armies  of  Great  Britain,  France, 
Russia,  and  Italy,  are  being  utilized  to-day,  not 
to  sustain  but  to  overthrow  militarism! 

The  fear  of  militarism  in  the  United  States  is 
ill-founded.  All  institutions  are  transfigured 
by  the  ideals  which  call  them  into  being.  It  is 
not  the  mere  differences  in  the  constitutional 
articles  under  which  the  American  and  the  Ger- 
man states  are  confederated  that  differentiate 

127 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

those  unions — ^it  is  their  respective  ideals  of 
human  freedom. 

Pursuing  the  thought  of  another,  I  might  say- 
that  there  is  nothing  in  our  annals  which  war- 
rants evil  presage  from  the  growth  of  our 
army,  nothing  which  precludes  the  hope,  the  just 
confidence  that  our  very  blood  and  the  inefface- 
able character  of  our  race  will  save  us  from 
any  mischief  that  militarism  may  have  brought 
to  others,  aud  that  in  the  future  another  chiv- 
alry may  arise  which  shall  be  to  other  armies 
and  other  systems  what  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal 
of  popular  liberty  is  to  the  political  institutions 
of  other  peoples — a  paragon  and  an  example. 

SHght  consideration  will  compel  one  to  admit 
that  militarism  has  to  do  neither  with  the  size 
nor  the  cost  of  armies,  and  that  it  has  but  de- 
rived its  name  from  that  medium  through  which 
it  may  manifest  itself — ^the  military  institution, 
and  that  it  is  neither  the  parent  nor  the  off- 
spring of  national  armament  for  defense.  We 
must,  therefore,  conclude  that  it  is  the  out- 
growth of  excessive  governmental  centraliza- 
tion, which  cannot  exist  in, the  United  States 
under  its  present  form  of  government,  however 
large  an  army  may  be  maintained,  and  however 
well  trained  in  arms  our  citizens  might  be,  and 

128 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

however  well  prepared  to  save  to  humanity 
those  priceless  institutions  which  we  inherited 
from  onr  forefathers. 

Nations  may  be  classified  both  with  respect 
to  the  status  of  their  military  institutions  and 
their  national  dispositions  in  the  past  as  fol- 
lows: 

1.  Militaristic,  militant;  German  type. 

2.  Military,  militant;  French  type. 

3.  Military,  pacific;  Swiss  type. 

4.  Unmilitary,  militant ;  British  type. 

5.  Unmilitary,  pacific;  China  type. 

The  difference  between  the  German  and  the 
French  types  in  this  classification  illustrates 
the  true  meaning  of  militarism  in  a  very  force- 
ful way. 

A  survey  of  the  history  of  the  United  States 
up  to  1914  would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  be- 
longed to  the  most  dangerous  of  these  types, 
or  the  British  type — the  most  dangerous  be- 
cause militant,  yet  unprepared  as  a  whole  peo- 
ple. Eecent  events  would  seem  to  indicate, 
however,  that  the  nation,  honey-combed  with 
pacifism  to  a  greater  extent  than  even  Great 
Britain,  has  lost  its  old  militant  spirit,  and  un- 
able to  rise  with  the  sword  of  Christ  to  a  plane 
of  moral  belligerency,  has  sunk  under  the  in- 

129 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

fluence  of  the  false  teachings  of  St.  Pierre,  and 
Kant,  and  Tolstoi  to  that  of  unmilitary  paci- 
fism— to  that  plane  in  which  the  horrors  and  the 
evils  of  human  strife  are  allowed  to  obscure 
completely  the  moral  grandeur  of  righteous 
war,  and  the  uplifting  influence  of  a  sacrifice  to 
an  ideal. 

For  a  brief  period  it  seemed  as  if  the  British 
Empire  had  lost  not  only  its  will,  but  its  ability 
to  rise  above  this  sordid,  immoral  plane.  But 
with  what  high  hope  for  Christendom  and  the 
spiritual  salvation  of  humanity  it  freed  itself 
from  the  sloth  of  false  pacifism,  and  cast  aside 
the  fatuous  doctrines  of  the  misguided,  over- 
zealous  humanitarians !  How  grandly  was  the 
fate  that  had  almost  overtaken  it  under  this 
false  leadership  denied !  Was  it  not  Christ  who 
whispered  into  the  national  ear  in  that  dark 
hour  of  travail  and  uncertainty :  *  *  What  profit- 
eth  your  wealth  if  your  soul  be  lost?  Arise 
and  go  forth  with  the  sword  of  truth  which 
I  have  given  unto  you!  Put  on  the  whole 
armor  of  God!  Fear  not  to  strike  for  that 
spiritual  peace  that  passeth  all  understand- 
ing!" And  thus  touched,  the  soul  of  the  na- 
tion responded  to  its  awakened  conscience,  and 
a  people,  sure  of  the  divine  justice  of  their  mis- 

130 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

sion,  and  witli  all  evil  shed  away,  rose  to  strike 
with  God-given  might  for  truth,  for  justice,  and 
for  humanity!  Can  it  be  that  peace — supine 
peace — can  hold  for  a  race  so  great  a  reward 
as  that  which  will  come  with  Christ's  victory? 
Shall  we  scorn  the  valor  of  those  who  go  forth 
to  conquer  in  His  name?  How  can  we  bring 
ourselves  to  despise  the  blood  sacrifices  of  the 
brave,  and  hold  the  ideals  for  which  they  offered 
up  their  all  as  unworthy  of  the  tribute  of  hu- 
man life?  Do  not  the  God-like  choirs  of  poster- 
ity live  through  the  dying  deeds  of  those  whose 
requiem  they  chant  ?  And  what  shall  become  of 
our  faith  if  we  must  believe  with  the  pacifist  that 
in  an  hour  of  unwisdom  God  permits  the  smil- 
ing, beardless  youth  of  a  warrior  race  to  per- 
ish and  their  mothers  to  weep  vainly? 

In  order  that  we  may  retain  our  faith  we 
need  not  demand  to  know  in  advance  the  where- 
fore of  all  things.  Wisdom  may  consist  of 
knowing  what  one  does  not  have  to  know.  Let 
us  say  with  Socrates:  **What  God  is  I  know 
not;  what  he  is  not,  I  know."  Do  we  not  know 
that  God  created  between  men  the  great  an- 
tagonisms out  of  which  strife  arises,  so  that 
**The  righteous  shall  rejoice  when  he  seeth  the 
vengeance :    He  shall  wash  his  feet  in  the  blood 

181 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

of  the  wicked;  so  that  men  shall  say,  Verily 
there  is  a  reward  for  the  righteous:  Verily 
there  is  a  God  that  judgeth  in  the  Earth." 
(Psalms  59.  10,  11.)  And  shall  we  derive  no 
consolation  from  the  words  of  the  Greek  orator 
who  could  declare — **0f  the  dead  who  have 
fallen  in  battle  the  wide  Earth  itself  is  the 
sepulchre ;  their  tomb  is  not  the  grave  in  which 
they  are  laid,  but  the  undying  memory  of  the 
generations  that  come  after  them.  They  per- 
ish, snatched  in  a  moment,  in  the  height  of 
achievement,  not  from  their  fear,  but  from  their 
renown.  Fortunate!  And  you  who  have  lost 
them,  you,  who  as  mortal  have  been  born  sub- 
ject unto  disaster,  how  fortunate  are  you  to 
whom  sorrow  comes  in  so  glorious  a  shape ! ' ' 

Is  there  for  mankind  only  loss,  and  sorrow, 
and  bitter  regret  in  the  death  of  Kitchener 
whose  tomb  is  some  unknown  cavern  of  the  sea, 
but  whose  watery  grave  shall  be  forever  decked 
with  a  wreath  of  spray  and  billows? 

Is  the  Calvary  a  meaningless  symbol! 

To  these  queries  we  answer,  no — emphatically 
no !  These  things  are  far  from  being  meaning- 
less. Symbolical  of  our  most  exalted  aspira- 
tions they  are  the  planets  in  the  firmament  of 
our  faith — often  o  ^erclouded  and  obscured  from 

132 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

our  moral  vision,  but  ever  there  above  us,  and 
ever  and  anon  shining  down  upon  us  with  re- 
newed brilliance  to  guide  and  to  beckon  us  on 
through  the  darkness  of  doubt. 

It  is  he  who  so  loudly  claims  to  do  God's 
bidding — the  importunate  pacifist — who  is  lack- 
ing in  faith;  he  who  chafes  at  the  will  of  God, 
and  not  the  soldier  who  willingly  sheds  his 
blood  for  an  ideal.  There  is  not  a  crumb  that 
falls  from  His  hand,  or  the  soul  of  a  warrior 
that  passes  upward  to  Valhalla,  without  a  di- 
vine purpose.  So  why  should  we  moralize 
on  perpetual  peace,  and  doubt?  The  wars  of 
nations  are  not  the  petty  strifes  of  individual 
men.  The  very  magnitude  of  the  stake  at  is- 
sue in  a  war  that  is  believed  to  be  a  righteous 
one  exalts  the  souls  of  those  who  perish  for 
their  cause,  and  ennobles  the  spirits  of  those 
who  survive,  for  both  have  sealed  their  faith 
with  life  itself.  War — righteous  war — a  war 
for  ideals — is  no  more  out  of  tune  with  the  in- 
finite than  the  destructive  elements  of  fire,  and 
flood,  and  drought;  no  more  so  than  the  con- 
suming ambitions  of  the  human  soul  which  lead 
men  upward  and  ever  upward  to  the  altitudes 
of  transcendent  thought  and  deeds.  In  human 
society  there  are  groups  all  along  the  tortuous 

133 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

path  of  life.  Wars  for  ideals  are  but  the 
eternal  friction  between  groups  moving  upward 
and  downward  at  varying  rates  and  thus  con- 
flicting. Nor  was  it  ever  designed  by  the  all- 
wise  Power  that  there  should  be  no  crusaders, 
no  missionaries,  no  martyrs  on  this  earth  to 
overcome  with  force  and  example  those  who 
have  proved  unworthy  to  lead,  but  yet  who 
cling  to  their  scepters  of  dominion. 

These  facts  the  pacifist  in  his  humanitarian 
enthusiasm  ignores,  and  in  his  sweeping,  all- 
embracing  condemnation  of  human  conflict 
makes  no  distinction  between  a  war  for  an 
ideal  and  a  tribal  foray,  between  a  Christian 
soldier  and  a  murderous  bandit,  between  hu- 
man suffering  as  a  moral  sacrifice,  and  death 
through  unlawful  violence,  and  often  goes  so 
far  as  to  speak  of  the  brutalizing  effect  of  war 
even  upon  the  conscious  champions  of  an  ideal ! 

The  law  of  recompense  is  immutable.  How 
happy  is  he  who  can  with  Aristotle,  and  Plato, 
and  Carlyle  see  the  God-head  in  the  cannon's 
flash  and  smoke  of  battle,  and  in  the  din  of 
strife  detect  the  rumble  of  Jehovah's  wheels. 
How  vapid  and  uninspiring  is  the  faith  of  those 
who  like  Tolstoi  and  Bloch  can  only  see  the 
blanching  faces  and  hear  the  shrieks  of  the 

134 


FEAR  OF  MILITARISM  UNREASONABLE 

dying — who  know  only  the  pathological  side  of 
war. 

Pacifism  dates  from  the  first  battle  among 
men — it  is  as  old  as  war  itself.  But  still  there 
are  Lowells  who  can  write :     . 

*  *  The  best  guide  from  old  to  new  is  Peace — 
Yet,  Freedom,  thou  canst  scantify  the  sword! 
Bravely  to  do  whatever  the  time  demands, 
Whether  with  pen  or  sword,  and  not  to  flinch, 
This  is  the  task  that  fits  heroic  hands: 
So  are  Truth's  boundaries  widened  inch  by  inch. 
I  do  not  love  the  Peace  which  tyrants  make; 
The  calm  she  breeds  let  swords'  lightning  break! 
It  is  the  tyrants  who  have  beaten  out 
Plowshares  and  pruning  hooks  to  spears  and  swords, 
And  shall  I  pause  and  moralize  and  doubt? 
Whose  veins  run  water  let  him  mete  his  words!" 

It  is  through  service  in  a  righteous  cause 
that  men  have  widened  Truth  ^s  boundaries  inch 
by  inch.  It  can  only  be  through  the  universal 
service  in  arms  of  our  citizens  that  those  boun- 
daries wrested  from  the  wilderness  of  tyranny 
by  our  patriot  forefathers  will  be  preserved, 
and  within  them  that  freedom  which  has  sancti- 
fied their  swords.  It  is  a  mistake,  nay  more, 
a  crime  upon  humanity,  to  teach  the  race  that 

135 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

to  fight  for  the  blessings  it  has  inherited  is 
wrong,  or  to  encourage  onr  men  to  neglect  any 
means  by  which  they  may  protect  their  price- 
less heritage.  All  of  our  men  need  not  be 
actually  trained  as  soldiers,  but  the  whole  race, 
men  and  women  alike  should  be  rendered  war- 
riors at  heart.  Every  man  should  be  subject 
to  compulsory  service  whether  trained  or  not. 
The  actual  training  of  a  sufficiently  large  pro- 
portion of  our  men  will  make  warriors  of  the 
whole  race — ^warriors  with  a  hatred  of  militar- 
ism and  injustice  in  their  hearts  that  will  for- 
ever guarantee  the  persistence  of  our  demo- 
cratic institutions. 

**With  us  the  decision  rests.  K  we  should 
decide  wrongly — ^it  is  not  the  loss  of  prestige, 
it  is  not  the  narrowed  bounds  we  have  to  fear, 
it  is  the  judgment  of  the  dead,  the  despair  of 
the  living,  of  the  inarticulate  myriads  who  have 
trusted  to  us,  it  is  the  arraigning  eyes  of  the 
unborn.    "Who  can  confront  this  unappalledr' 

In  making  our  decision  shall  we  deny  the 
wisdom  of  God  who  imposes  upon  His  people 
the  ordeal  of  battle,  and  yet  continue  to  raise 
aloft  our  national  hymn — Lord  God  of  Hosts, 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  protect  us  by  Thy  might! 


136 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

One  who  wishes  to  study  the  scientific  organi- 
zation of  armies,  and  the  principles  underlying 
the  modern  military  institutions,  must  prepare 
himself  to  examine  the  authorities  of  Europe. 
Fortunately,  many  of  the  great  works  of  the 
political  and  military  writers  of  Europe  have 
been  translated  into  English.  The  knowledge 
of  the  American  people  of  things  military  is 
based  almost  entirely  upon  the  works  of  their 
own  statesmen  and  the  popular  narratives  of 
their  soldier  heroes,  who,  as  a  rule,  while  brave 
and  patriotic,  have  been  poorly  educated  as 
compared  with  the  military  students  of  Eu- 
rope. 

The  following  list  might  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely, but  in  it  will  be  found  many  landmarks 
in  the  progress  of  thought,  and  the  works  enu- 
merated will  afford  that  authoritative  infor- 
mation upon  which  the  student  may  alone  ar- 
rive at  an  intelligent  conviction. 

139 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Delapield,  Art  of  War  in  Europe  in  1854-5-6. 

Eeeves,    Military    Education    in    the    United 
States. 

Seeley,  Life  and  Times  of  Stein. 

KuppEL,  Biography  of  Scharnhorst  (German). 

Osgood,  The   American  Colonies  in  the  17th 
Century. 

Bbuce,  Institutional  History  of  Virginia  in  the 
17th  Century. 

EoEMEB,  Cavalry,  Its  History,  Management  and 
Uses  in  War. 

Hatjseath,  Treitschke,  His  Doctrines  and  His 
life. 

Delbruck,  Life  of  Gneisenau  (German). 

Spiegel,  Dr.  Albert  Zizaus  Hardenberg  (Ger- 
man). 

Von  deb  Goltz,  The  Nation  in  Aj^ms. 

Clausewitz,  War. 

Wise,  Empire  and  Armament. 

BouTABic,  Institutions  militaires  de  la  France. 

Gautieb,  La  Chevalrie. 

ScHULTz,  Das  Hofische  Leben  zur  Zeit  der  Min- 
nesinger. 

Ranke,  Geschichte  Wallensteins. 

Geijee,  Geschichte  Schwedens  (German  transla- 
tion). 

ViLLET,  Histoire  des  institutions  politiques. 

140 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Seignobos,  Feudal  Regime  (Dow  translation). 

Stephens,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  Eng- 
land. 

Makmont,  De  Pesprit  des  institutions  mili- 
taires. 

HuiDEKOPEE,  The  Present  State  of  Unprepared- 
ness. 

Upton,  Military  Policy  of  the  United  States. 

Geeen,  The  Present  Military  Situation  in  the 
United  States. 

SoMBAET,  Krieg  und  Kapitalismus. 

Steinmetz,  Die  Philosophic  des  Krieges. 

Tocqueville,  Democracy  in  the  United  States. 

Dodge,  Gustavus  Adolphus. 

Thotjmas,  Les  Anciennes  armees  frangaises  des 
origines  a  1870. 

Jeeeam,  Armies  of  the  World. 

Ceamb,  Origin  and  Destiny  of  Imperial  Britain. 


141 


TJV.ST  DATE 
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